


Prelude to a Partnership

by Miss Roylott (Cress221)



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Death of a dog, Drama & Romance, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Multi, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-04 10:34:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 48,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21196250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cress221/pseuds/Miss%20Roylott
Summary: A practically novel-length story about Holmes and Watson encountering each other at university in 1876, and what happens when they meet again inA Study in Scarlet. First written in 2002 or so. Still uses British spellings and other old-timey idiosyncrasies.





	1. The Episode of the Closet

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to archive my old Holmes/Watson stories here. This story is still on Feedbooks as an ebook but I can't seem to figure out how to download it again. Maybe I have to remember my old login or something. Anyway, this is one of my favorites and hopefully the trans character is still good in 2019.

I have done it, I have succumbed to my dreadful weakness. What violent scandal there would be if my family knew! It was all so shameful, too--sordid, hurried, and dirty. I broke away from Bart's for the weekend, so nerve-wracked and wretched with my carnal thoughts that I resolved finally to give up my resistance and just have a man. Any man. The barest modicum of restraint remaining within me warned that I must not be discovered by anyone who knew me; it would be the ruin of my career and my life. So I left London to relieve my unwholesome craving, taking only my old university gown with me, for I intended to use it as a sort of disguise.

Riding in the railway carriage toward my destination, I almost felt as if I were journeying backward in time. I remembered well my early undergraduate years and the typical abandon with which we young scholars consecrated ourselves to exploring every nuance of life and love and ideas, whether they be ignoble or not. I remembered the intimate friendships that one formed in those ivory towers, and the illicit temptations that emerged within the shadows of those venerable colleges.

More than that, I knew that it must be this same way at every such university, every academy brimming with impressionable young minds and hearts, year after year. Indeed, I also knew that now, at a university safely distant from my own, I could easily find one of those fresh young lads who would be receptive to my advances. It could not be that hard, after all, to seduce a young man; certainly not as hard as my faint-hearted charade these days of wooing varied women.

Upon my arrival at the platform, I put on my gown over my street clothes before going into town. Like in some fairy story, my black gown would be my cloak of invisibility, to render me anonymous and unremarkable among all the other young men passing to and fro in their gowns. In any case, I have been told often enough that my face and figure are very commonplace, easily mistaken for other men's.

So with feigned leisure, I strolled among the grand old edifices of the university and carefully devised my strategy for finding those students who would be likely candidates for my sinful purpose. I knew I could not just go hunting among the colleges, for the eagle-eyed porters at the gates would likely take note of any strangers coming into the residences; I could not risk their suspicions. I determined instead to find an ongoing lecture or practicum, where I might discreetly drop in and pass unnoticed by the students and the dons. Then I could chat up a chap or two, and hopefully manage to coax someone's interest.

Not knowing the schedule of the lectures here, I followed a cluster of students striding purposefully along. They entered an imposing, magnificent building evidently dedicated to philosophy, according to what I read of the Latin inscriptions on the façade. I swerved away from this building, knowing full well that I could not sit through a lecture on philosophy and risk someone questioning me about the subject. Therefore I sought out the subjects I had read in my own curriculum, so that I might reasonably pass myself off as a student.

Soon I found the university's medical school and went inside. If I wandered in either egregiously late or early for a class, I would explain myself as being new to the university and muddled--which of course, I was. There were a number of both auditoriums and laboratories contained within, and I quietly passed by each room glimpsing inside for students. I wanted a crowd into which I might blend; attractive students would be nice too.

I found a chemical laboratory moderately full of students and entered. They had naturally all hung up their black gowns in order to avoid chemical stains, as well the danger of the loose garments catching fire in the Bunsen burners. I removed my own gown too and approached one dashing, fun-looking fellow, asking him where the professor might be.

"Which professor?" he asked me.

Which?--Was no one here to supervise this lab?

He chuckled a very pleasant chuckle. "Oh, well, this is independent research we are doing here. The lab is open for us to use without a professor."

"Oh!" I looked embarrassed and apologised, explaining that I was new to the university and a bit muddled. I must be at the wrong place.

"We all are, sometimes!" He shook my hand and introduced himself to me; I answered with an alias that I had chosen for the occasion, James Morris. Douglas was very friendly and continued to converse with me while he worked on his research. I questioned him about it and he invited me to assist him. We were getting on rather splendidly, and I sincerely hoped that he would not turn out to be revolted if and when I kissed him.

Yet while we chattered on and worked together, I began to feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. I felt as if someone were behind me, watching me, and when I turned around I indeed found a young man staring at me openly from across the room. He was a tall, thin, dark-haired fellow with a hawk-like face, perched there behind his own arrangement of instruments and flasks and pipes. His chemicals were certainly brewing with activity, but he did not pay attention to them at all, just standing there brazenly peering at me with his grey eyes. I scowled at him, but he would not shake his gaze.

Douglas noticed my distraction and, seeing the over-inquisitive student, he looked sympathetically at me. "The cheek! Did his mother never teach him manners?" He kept his voice fairly low to avoid arousing the attention of all the other students in the room.

Douglas began to ask me to keep an eye on his chemicals for a moment, no doubt intending to go over and have a word with the dark-haired young man. I however was seized with a sudden and terrible uneasiness about the whole situation, and, unable to withstand it any longer, I made scattered apologies to Douglas and left the laboratory. Douglas started to follow after me, asking me the name of my college, that he might see me later, but his chemicals called him back by disastrously bubbling over onto the tabletop. His experiment was too delicate to withstand his neglect for long; after cleaning up the mess, he would probably have to start all over again.

I withdrew down the passage and retreated to a lonely corner, too upset to think much about poor Douglas. I inwardly cursed that intrusive idiot for spoiling my chances, and I also cursed myself for my unexpected cowardice. Why did I let that wretched fellow shake my nerves so much? Why did I run away? He wasn't really a porter, after all; he just reminded me of one. I sank down to the floor with a sigh and wondered why my life should have to be so miserable. It was probably due to my perversion.

I heard footsteps approaching me then and for a moment thought that Douglas had come looking for me after all, so I quickly got up to my feet. I soon saw to my disappointment that it was not he, but rather the dark-haired student, coming with a black gown draped over his arm. Why didn't his chemical research need him, damn it?

"You left your gown behind," he said quietly to me. "Not a very wise move."

I was incensed with him and snatched back my gown testily.

He then had the audacity to try to apologise to me, in what I felt was a very insincere and placating voice. "I realise that my imprudent and concentrated stare has upset you, and I would like to explain, if I might--"

His cool, collected manner only enraged me more. I dragged him by his coat-sleeve further away from the main corridor, to an isolated space well out of earshot and eyesight of any passers-by, and I had it out with him. "Listen here, you, I want to know who you are, and why I shouldn't thrash the hell out of you for your boorishness!"

"I assure you that I meant no harm," he insisted in that eminently reasonable tone. "I watch people as a sort of hobby; I observe details about them as a mental exercise--"

"Exercise for what? Offending people?!"

"I apologise. I am usually never so blatant, but the details about you simply fascinated me so much. Such a wealth of things to analyse and deduce from."

He bewildered me. "Are you some kind of crackpot?"

"No, what I do is read your appearance, your things, for clues. Your gown, for instance, is similar to the gowns of students here, but it is subtly and distinctly different in ways that are suggestive--"

I looked with horror to the gown on my arm and felt the meaning of his words sink in slowly. He somehow knew that I was not a student at this university, that I had come to this town only just today. The thought of what else he might know frightened and sickened me. As he kept talking, I wondered madly if I was being followed, watched. Had my family suspected my awful weakness and hired some spy to keep me in check? I dropped my gown on the floor, and he stopped talking long enough to glance at me.

"Is something wrong?" he asked, stepping closer. "You look ill."

I would not give him the satisfaction of watching me faint, so I fought back for control of myself. Launching myself at him, I grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him back against the wall. "Who are you?" I demanded. "What business is it of yours what I do?!"

"Calm down, man. Calm down." He tried to brush me off, and I only held onto him more roughly, hoping to bruise him.  
"Answer me!" I choked through my anger.

He exhibited a surprising strength in fighting me, and my rage only deepened as he tried to restrain my violent temper with soothing words and his renewed stare. Fixed on me so sharply, his clear grey eyes seemed to be trying to mesmerise me and overpower me with their intensity.

I stubbornly shoved at him, like a schoolyard bully used to having his way, and he matched my force with his own. Making no headway began to frustrate and exhaust me. "Just leave me alone," I growled in my distress and unhappiness. "I came all this way, and you just... I hate you, I hate you!"

Then without knowing why, I kissed him furiously, violently. Just as inexplicably, he stood still and stopped fighting me.

Without warning and without thought I found myself touching this young man, caressing his face and hair, devouring his soft mouth. As he sighed and closed his eyes, I pulled him with me toward a nearby closet. He was willing; he had a tendency. He responded to my hunger and drank in my kisses like one who is savouring a excellent vintage. Maybe this was really why he had stared at me with such absorbed interest. We shut ourselves inside the little closet and jammed the door so that we would not be disturbed. Then we took our guilty pleasure there in the darkness. It was wordless, shameless, heedless of all decency in that cramped space. I did not know nor care what his name was. All I wanted was his body, his touch.

When I had at last satisfied my depraved appetite, I released him from my carnal embrace. We dressed hurriedly and then unjammed the door, exiting carefully so that no one would see us. From the look in his eyes he seemed to want to say something to me as we stood alone in that secluded nook, but I shook my head and he, being more mature than most of his peers, simply stood silent. He stooped to pick up my dropped gown from the floor and handed it back to me. Turning, I parted from him immediately and scurried to be away. I left the building and soon the town, too shocked at my actions to remain for the whole weekend, as I had originally intended.

Since my return to London, I am of course unfit to do the work on my thesis which I ought to have done this weekend. I am too distracted and restless with thinking of what I have done with that dark-haired, delicious student. I have probably thrown away all my righteous upbringing today, and by tomorrow the shame and regret will bear down on me, I'm sure. But it felt so damn good!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Bart's is St. Bartholomew's hospital, affiliated with the University of London. This part of Prelude occurs during the period that Watson is working (working, not studying as an undergraduate) at Bart's with Stamford.  
2\. Watson is (not) working on his doctoral thesis. In the British system, once you earn a Bachelor of Medicine degree, you can legally practice medicine, and can be called by the courtesy title of "Doctor" even though technically you are only a Mister. Watson, however, did not stop there, for he stated at the beginning of _Study in Scarlet_ that he took a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1878 from the University of London. To earn it, he would have needed to do additional work and write a thesis to be approved by other Doctors; I've been told that this was an unusual move for Watson to make, since most people only pursue the doctorate if they are going into research.


	2. The Whims of Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The inevitable reunion in 1881, through Stamford.

Sherlock Holmes. That is his name. I never knew it until today, nor did I ever expect to see him again, but providence (or the Devil) seems to have a cruel sense of irony. It must be five years now since that evil weekend that I strayed from London and infiltrated a university for the sake of anonymous, unnatural fornication. After all this time, after my service in India and Afghanistan, after my wound and my illness, and after these listless and lonely weeks spent in London, my past finally comes back to shatter my complacence.

I should have had a premonition of it when I ran into Stamford at the Criterion. He was a dresser under me at Bart's, around the same time as my encounter with Holmes. Yet who would ever think that two men from such disparate parts of my life would come to meet eventually, or that I should happen upon those same two men on the same fateful day?

Over lunch at the Holborn, Stamford had suggested Holmes to me as someone with whom I might share affordable lodgings, and I had no reason of course to recognise the name. Stamford described the man's eccentric character and his puzzling studies as we made our way to the hospital, but he had never spoken of his appearance. I don't suppose I should have recognised Holmes by physical description, anyway, not after five years. So it came as a shock to me to suddenly see him there, flesh and blood, looking scarcely older than he had at our previous meeting.

Stamford brought me down to the chemical laboratory where the fellow was working. From the view of his back, he looked to me like any diligent student bent over his retorts, test-tubes, and Bunsen lamps. So far, nothing disturbing about this Sherlock Holmes.

As he heard our approach, however, he turned around to us, and now I caught my breath. There was no mistaking those grey eyes, that angular face, and those stained hands--he was the same student I had encountered in a different laboratory five years ago. I felt frozen and guilty, as if that episode in the closet had occurred only yesterday.

Sherlock Holmes did not really see me at first, his attention focused solely upon the results of his chemical experiment. He sprang up from his seat and came toward Stamford, wielding a test-tube in his hand. "I've found it! I've found it!" he cried out with a boyish delight. "I have found a re-agent which is precipitated by haemoglobin, and by nothing else."

Raising a restraining hand, Stamford stopped him from continuing with his excited announcement. "Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," he introduced us.

Now Holmes took a good look at me, glancing at me from head to toe, and by the change in his eyes, I saw that he recognised me too. He did not look as horrified as I felt.

He extended his hand to me. "How--" But no, "how do you do?" was too cool a greeting for someone he knew intimately already. I could see the thought in his smile. "How are you?" he said instead. He shook my hand and watched my face for my reaction. "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive."

I was taken aback. "How on earth did you know that?" A horrifying idea struck me that he had followed me from his university back to London, that he had somehow been following me ever since.

"Never mind," he said, chuckling softly. Holmes pointed out his test-tube again. "The question now is about haemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of mine?"

I wrenched my mind onto the subject of his experiment, searching for merely conversational words to dispel my anxiety and distress. I shrugged. "It is interesting, chemically, no doubt, but practically--"

He seemed put out, and insisted that I share his enthusiasm. "Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years. Don't you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains? Come over here now!" He seized me by the coat-sleeve and drew me over to the table at which he had been working, whereupon he put away his test-tube into a nearby rack and reached for a bodkin. "Let us have some fresh blood."

At that remark, Stamford smiled and winked at me, as if to comment upon the difficulty in diverting Holmes, when once he had launched upon a subject that stimulated him. Stamford watched us with amusement, little knowing that my discomfort did not lie with Holmes's monopoly on the conversation.

Holmes pricked one of his fingers and mixed a drop of the resulting blood into a litre of water. He then added various ingredients to the solution, all the while talking incessantly about his remarkable test for haemoglobin. The result was an instantaneous colour change, and the precipitation of a brownish dust to the bottom of the glass jar.

"Ha! ha!" He clapped with renewed delight at his success. "What do you think of that?"

I acknowledged that it was indeed a very delicate test.

He went on again about the exquisite beauty of the test and its superiority to both the guaiacum test and the method of detecting blood corpuscles under a microscope. He spoke of criminal cases which would rely on such a blood test to either confirm or rule out the origin of suspicious stains. The garrulous flow of his words left me flustered.

Stamford finally interrupted him with a laugh. "You seem to be a walking calendar of crime. You might start a paper on those lines. Call it 'Police News of the Past.'"

"Very interesting reading it might be made, too." Holmes finally remembered his pricked finger and placed a small piece of plaster over it, remarking that he must take care, for he dabbled in poisons a good deal.

Stamford winked at me again, and Holmes held out his hand to show the many stains and pieces of plaster which covered it. I had a memory of both his slender hands, in not quite so marred a condition, touching me long ago with a strength and daring that had surprised me and sent shivers through me in that dark closet. Indeed, the thought had sent shivers through me for quite a few nights afterward, alone in my bed.

As blissfully ignorant as ever, Stamford changed the subject from crime. "We came here on business," he said, sitting on a stool and pushing another one toward me with his foot. "My friend here wants to take diggings; and as you were complaining that you could get no one to go halves with you, I thought that I had better bring you together."

I seriously considered retracting my interest in the lodgings then, but could see no way to explain it to Stamford, especially since I had been previously so insistent that I did not mind the eccentric traits that he had described to me since lunch.

For his part, Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing rooms with me. "I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street which would suit us down to the ground." He presumed to know what would suit me, though he hardly knew me at all. He asked, "You don't mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope?"

I determined to be friendly and positive while Stamford sat smiling upon us, for I might always change my mind afterward and have a word with Holmes in private. "I always smoke 'ship's' myself," I answered.

"That's good enough." He gestured toward the table. "I generally have chemicals about, and occasionally do experiments. Would that annoy you?"

"By no means."

He smiled at my easygoing attitude and rambled on happily. "Let me see--what are my other shortcomings? I get in the dumps at times, and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone and I'll soon be all right. What have you to confess now? It's just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together."

Oh, we knew the worst of one another all right. The very worst of depravity and lust. I laughed to shake off my apprehension and adopted his own casual tone. "I keep a bull pup, and I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when I'm well, but those are the principal ones at present."

He smiled and nearly reached to touch my arm I think, before he remembered Stamford sitting there with us. He tilted his head at me. "Do you include violin playing in your category of rows?"

"It depends on the player," I replied with a shrug. "A well-played violin is a treat for the gods--a badly played one--"

He laughed merrily. "Oh, that's all right." His grey eyes met mine warmly. "I think we may consider the thing as settled--that is, if the rooms are agreeable to you."

I turned away from his glance, regretting that I had responded in kind to his flirtatious, teasing manner. Perhaps it was not good to be so near to kissing him again. "When shall we see them?" I murmured without interest.

Holmes noticed the change in me and rose from his stool. "Call for me here at noon tomorrow, and we'll go together and settle everything." He reached for my hand.

"All right--noon exactly." I shook his hand with formality and turned quickly to go.

Stamford called out good-bye to Holmes, then he followed me hurriedly out the door. He fell in step with me and insisted on walking with me to my hotel. He asked why I seemed sullen and quiet now. "Is something wrong? You two seemed to hit it off rather well, I thought. A real connexion."

I tried to dismiss his inquiry. "It's nothing. I--I was just thinking."

"About what?"

I turned to Stamford and said the first thing that came to me, though the point did vaguely disturb me. "How the deuce did he know that I had come from Afghanistan?"

Stamford nodded with understanding and smiled enigmatically. "That's just his little peculiarity. A good many people have wanted to know how he finds things out."

"Oh! a mystery is it?" I tried to look piqued with only an innocent interest. Stamford knew, after all, that I liked to read mystery novels. I told him that I wanted to make a study of this unique fellow to whom he had introduced me.

Stamford chuckled. "You must study him, then. You'll find him a knotty problem, though. I'll wager he learns more about you than you about him." Checking his watch, he realised that he had expended too much time in my company, and he bade me good-bye as he hurried off to keep an appointment.

Once I was free of him, I paused to mull over Stamford's remarks about Holmes. The hairs upon the back of my neck began to tingle. Heaven help me if the man were some kind of spy or blackmailer, following people around and learning their secrets. Worse yet, participating in my own despicable secret.

I kept looking around me in the street, yet saw no one like him anywhere. My nerves being quite unsettled, I hurried back to my hotel and have stayed here brooding in my room all day. Is this Sherlock Holmes someone I can trust, or is he a danger I would do best to avoid?

* * *

I went to meet Sherlock Holmes at the laboratory again, though an hour earlier than the time that we had agreed on the day before. I had resolved to tell him that I did not want to share the rooms after all, and to ask him for discretion's sake to not mention our sordid history to anyone.

I found him once more alone, working on some chemical analysis. I wondered if Holmes ever left the laboratory, or even lived there. He glanced towards me when I entered and gestured for me to take a stool, before he turned back to his work.

"I had not expected you so early, Doctor!" he remarked cheerfully. "You'll have to excuse me while I finish this one little thing, but then I promise I shall be entirely at your disposal. In fact, why don't we stop somewhere for lunch before we stroll over to Baker Street? Was it the Holborn at which you ate yesterday?"

He disconcerted me and revived the paranoid feeling that he had somehow followed me, which of course he could not have done.

Seeing my anxious expression, he lied politely, "Stamford told me." I was not convinced for a moment. He shrugged, "If you would like to dine somewhere else, naturally that would be all right with me."

"Listen, Holmes, I need to talk to you. I've changed my mind about the rooms."

He did not reply immediately, being engrossed in the resolution of his experiment. When it was complete, Holmes gingerly set the glass instruments aside and wiped his hands on a towel. "Very well," he said, "let us talk, Doctor." He turned his stool toward mine and folded his hands. "Though I must warn you, I think you are making a mistake."

"A mistake?"

"Leaving aside for the moment the fact that we have known each other in the past--which I actually believe might help us rather than harm us--the simple truth is that I desperately need a room-mate, and you also desperately need a change of accommodations."

"How do you know that?" I demanded. He was as frustrating as ever.

"One cannot afford residence at a hotel forever, not on a wound pension. If you won't admit to that, Doctor, then have pity on me at least. I shall never be able to afford these rooms without someone, and I happen to know that the suite will be let to another if I am not swift enough." He took my hand. "At least help me forestall that eventuality by seeing the rooms with me today, as we agreed yesterday."

I relented, as it seemed to mean so much to him. "I will see them, though I cannot promise you more than that."

"Of course, Doctor." He rose from his stool. "Come, let me treat you to lunch, to say thank you."

I hesitated.

"We'll find a private booth to talk," he said. His eyes could be very direct and powerful at times, and I could not resist them for long.

We went to lunch, and after our meals were set before us, we began to talk in earnest.

"So you have come up to London," I said.

He nodded. "Many people do."

"Four millions of people do. London has always been that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are inevitably drained."

Holmes smiled at my colourful phrase. "An apt way to put it, Doctor." He toyed with his food pensively, shaking his head. "Still, five years. I had not thought I should see you again after so long a time."

"Nor did I."

He shrugged. "Not knowing each other's names, we might have easily continued to miss each other among four millions of people. I remembered you were in medicine, of course, and I sometimes thought it likely that you had been practising at Bart's. Even so, as I did not see you around, you obviously had already taken your degree and gone away, probably to a private practice somewhere."

"I had not. I was in the army."

"So I deduced from your wounded shoulder," he replied matter-of-factly.

How could my wounded shoulder alone speak such volumes? Holmes eerily seemed to know everything about me. Stamford had also seen my wound, yet he still had needed me to relate my full adventures to him before he knew where I had been. How did Holmes know that I had entered the army, that I had served in Afghanistan? How, indeed, had he known all those facts that he had rattled off about me five years ago when we first met? My being from another university, my being in medicine--it could not all have been from my black gown. My old uneasiness and bewilderment were returning in full force, for I did not really believe in clairvoyance.

"What have _you_ been doing these five years?" I asked him, hoping that Holmes would reveal something definite about himself. Nevertheless, he remained rather vague.

"Well, I stayed a little longer at university, but I did not take a degree, as my particular studies have been so unusual. I have lived in London since then, with rooms in Montague Street, and I have occupied my time with my profession and some of my independent researches. Lately, as Stamford has probably told you, I have taken some useful lectures and have made use of the hospital's excellent laboratories, for I have no adequate set-up in my current rooms. I hope to remedy that matter soon by obtaining this suite in Baker Street. There is sufficient space there for a little laboratory of my own."

I naturally wanted to know his profession, and started to ask him, but he anticipated me and became evasive.

"My profession is a private little business that you would be bored to hear of, no doubt."

His avoidance aroused my suspicions. Why should he not want me to know what he did, especially if he wished me to share rooms with him and have me put up with whatever his daily routine might be?

Holmes cleared his throat and firmly focused the conversation on the rooms in Baker Street. He explained that his income was variable, and that he could only guarantee having a modest amount of rent every month, which was why he needed a partner with a more stable income in order to meet the price of these rooms. This seemed reasonable enough, and if he were indeed a spy or blackmailer, he could not be making much money at it. Yet.

I tried to ask again what his profession was, prepared to insist on the point if I had to, but Holmes interrupted by asking me my first name. It caught me off guard, and he smiled wryly at his bluntness. "I am sorry for being so forward, Doctor, but Stamford did not mention it the other day, and I hate to feel that you have an advantage over me. Especially considering... our prior intimacy."

"John," I answered awkwardly. "It's John."

"Thank you, Doctor. The name suits you."

There was a pause, and the food felt dry in my throat, so I sipped my drink and tried to ignore the rising hairs on the back of my neck. Despite everything, I had a sudden maddening desire for him then. I wanted to throw him down in that booth and have him again, in public. I wanted to hear him moan my name "John" in that voice of his, to feel his nimble fingers sliding down my spine. And what then? Would I whisper back to him "Sherlock", not caring if he were a blackmailer or not?

Holmes noticed my tension and leaned near to me, speaking in low voice, "Watson, I... I do remember everything of that day too. It is a pleasant memory. There were times I thought about seeking you out. Making inquiries, narrowing down your university, and paying you a reciprocal visit." Then he sat back and chuckled quietly. "It was a test, in a way. A test of my resolve."

I watched the pensive look in his eyes.

He folded his hands together and spoke normally again, "You'll agree that much has changed for both of us in the intervening years. I am sure that we are each capable of letting what is past remain in the past. Do not worry that I have designs upon you, Doctor, nor that I would wish to expose you to your friends. I am equally at risk on that point, as you know."

In this way he tried to convince me that all would be well, should I agree to split the rent with him. I was not sure whether I trusted him yet, but I was willing to listen. Indeed, as Holmes had already pointed out, my impoverished pocketbook necessitated that I listen.

Pushing aside his plate, he took out an old pipe and a pouch of tobacco from his pocket. "Care for some?" he offered. I accepted, and he lit both our pipes with his match. Then he paid for our lunch and walked with me over to Baker Street.

The rooms were quite agreeable and fully furnished, with large windows looking onto the street below. Holmes spoke of clearing out one corner of the sitting-room and moving in a deal-top table for his planned laboratory. I walked into one of the bedrooms and gazed out its window for a while, thinking. After my time alone, I returned to the sitting-room and asked Holmes what the rent would be for the apartments. He told me, and added that this price included meals and the use of the landlady's servants. I finally agreed, and we immediately made the necessary arrangements with Mrs. Hudson.

Thus I have moved into 221B Baker Street this very evening, and have enjoyed my first dinner prepared by the gracious landlady. It is quiet here, and I only await Holmes to bring over his own belongings tomorrow morning. We shall see how this arrangement works out between us, and should we part, I hopefully will have amassed enough savings by then to be able to afford similar lodgings elsewhere. Who knows? I may even return to work in a practice or hospital, when I am feeling more myself. I shall not be dependent upon him for long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. "connexion" is an old-timey spelling of connection that I've read in British cozy mysteries before. Can't remember the exact story.  
2\. Watson himself uses the phrase "five millions of people" in "The Cardboard Box" story, and it strikes me as an interesting turn of phrase.  
3\. For the purposes of this novel, their bedrooms are on the same floor, off a corridor from the sitting room. The layout is ambiguous in the canonical stories.


	3. Guarded Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suspicious Watson is suspicious. The Irregulars and Lestrade make an appearance.

Sherlock Holmes moved in this morning, bringing his belongings over in a hired four-wheeler that he drove himself. I was finishing my breakfast by the window when I saw his arrival below; it surprised me to see Holmes at the reins, but perhaps it was cheaper than hiring a driver as well. A couple of street urchins were riding on the back of the cab, and I at first thought that they had done so without Holmes's knowledge. However, they jumped off and went right up to him when the vehicle stopped. Holmes handed them the reins as he stepped down, and they simply stood holding the horse and talking to each other while he went up and down the stairs, steadily unloading his boxes and portmanteaus.

I did assist Holmes as much as he would let me, bringing his belongings upstairs and depositing them here or there in sitting-room, but he often insisted on personally tending to those items that he deemed more precious or private; he took a number of the boxes directly into his bedroom, for instance.

In about an hour the unloading was done, and Holmes descended once more to return the four-wheeler. He paid the street urchins for their time, even patting their scruffy heads, and then stepped back up to the driver's seat. The boys remained on the pavement watching Holmes drive away, and then they gazed up to where I stood by the window. I was surprised at their audacity, pointing at me and whispering to each other.

So I leaned out the window and cleared my throat gruffly. "Mr. Holmes did dismiss you, did he not?"

They laughed, and one answered, "Yes, sir! We were just curious about what fella he is living with."

"It is none of your business!" I said.

They laughed again, then scampered off mischievously.

When Holmes returned later and sat down to lunch with me, I told him of the incident, and he only remarked with a shrug, "They are harmless, Doctor. They do little errands for me, from time to time. I will speak to them about their behaviour, but you shall have to forgive them some brashness, as they aren't raised in polite society."

"Certainly," I answered, "but you would think they were personal friends of yours, standing around approving or disapproving of the company you keep."

I thought I caught a smile creeping across Holmes's lips, but he said nothing further.

When he was sufficiently fed and rested, he turned his attention back to his boxes. As I helped him unpack, I found that his possessions were as enigmatic and peculiar as he.

Sherlock Holmes owned countless books on a wide variety of technical subjects, some of which seemed related to the study of medicine, while others like law and geology had no relation. I arranged these tomes as best as I could on the bookshelves, moving aside my own books as necessary. Certainly he was a voracious reader, but it disappointed me that he had brought no novels or poetry, nothing light and frivolous. No literature, classical or modern, adorned any of the shelves that I set aside for him.

Meanwhile, with an almost loving delicacy, Holmes arranged his chemicals and equipment in the corner that was still waiting for the deal-top table. He claimed one desk for himself and started filling it with papers and objects that I could not quite see.

Observing such secretiveness on his part, I hoped that Holmes had merely stashed all his intimate objects in his bedroom. Better that he was obsessively private than positively inhuman. I could find no portraits of family or friends in box after box, no memorabilia of his school and university life, no sentimental trinkets such as I thought all people possessed. To be fair, Holmes did have a few objects of leisure, such as his blackened pipes and his violin, but these told me little except that he was fond of tobacco and music.

Suddenly to my delight, I found two objects clearly possessed of great character and whimsy: a Persian slipper that was filled with tobacco, and a charming little morocco case. I had picked up the latter and started to open it, when Holmes's voice startled me.

"Don't!" he shouted. "Put that down, right now, Watson!"

I did so, chastened by his sharp look of anger. "I--I'm sorry. I forgot myself."

"I know," he spoke more calmly. "Please understand that some of my things are private, and that you may not touch everything you come across."

"Yes, Holmes."

"Now would you please set that box down by my bedroom door, and move on to another box of books?"

I did as he asked, feeling like a child that had been scolded. It was ridiculous, really, as he was years younger than I, but he had a masterful manner that he exercised effortlessly on all people. I glanced toward him occasionally as we continued unpacking in silence. His expression had softened considerably, but he looked apprehensive, no doubt wondering whether he had forgotten to set aside any other box with sensitive contents.

Fortunately, we finished with the sitting-room boxes without further incident, and then Holmes withdrew to his bedroom, taking the box I had left by the door inside with him.

I did not see him again until supper. Like me, he had washed and changed after his hard labour that day, but his dressing-gown made him look particularly elegant somehow. His wet hair was very sleek, and his cologne was pleasant and subtle.

Sherlock Holmes is not, strictly speaking, handsome. Even the first time that we met, I knew that his face was a bit too angular for my tastes, his nose too beaky, and his figure too gaunt; he is not the type of man that normally attracts me at all. Yet there is an irresistible dynamism in his character, a sheer force of personality that renders him striking and magnetic in the proper circumstances. Being locked in battle with him, while at the same time suffering from frustrated lust, had made me throw myself at him before.

Tonight at dinner, Holmes seemed refined and charming, rather than prim and aloof. Like an actor so well-versed in his craft that he kept a dramatic air even off the stage, Holmes conversed in a lively manner, asking me if I liked my room well enough, and if I enjoyed Mrs. Hudson's cooking.

"Yes, Holmes. It is all very comfortable."

"Excellent. You see, you need not have stayed at such an extravagant hotel to enjoy the comforts of life."

"No indeed." Actually, I had led a rather comfortless, meaningless existence at the hotel, for I had felt alone and adrift.

He saw my expression. "You ought to have come to Bart's sooner, looked for old friends to keep you company."

I shrugged. "Would I have found you there, a month ago?"

"Yes, if you had come to the laboratory on the right day. Someone doubtless would have pointed me out to you as the eccentric student who beat the subjects in the dissecting-room, in order to ascertain the effects of bruising after death. They still talk of that."

I nodded. "Stamford mentioned it."

"Ah. No doubt you were horrified."

"Not as much as I was when I saw you."

He smiled good-naturedly. "I am glad you overcame your horror."

"You are not a medical student?" I pressed, seeing an opportunity.

"No," he said, "I shall not be following you into that noble profession." He deftly turned the question back to me. "I suppose that being an army surgeon made practising medicine more difficult than is customary? How did you fare in Afghanistan?"

I told him briefly of my life in the army, with as many omissions as I could spare, but Holmes prolonged the digression by asking me various questions about warfare and sanitary conditions. I do not think he was really interested in such details, but he probed me repeatedly to keep the conversation firmly steered away from his own profession. He won the battle.

After dinner, Holmes lit his pipe and sank into his armchair to read the evening _Times_. Realising my forgetfulness, I was about to send the page-boy out to fetch me a copy too, but Holmes gave me the front pages of his newspaper quite graciously. Evidently, he only wanted to read the agony columns, poring over them with keen interest.

I tried to draw Holmes into conversation again by reading out the major headlines to him, but he showed little interest. "Politics, Watson! What do I want to hear about the latest doings of Parliament for?" I suppose it was an understandable, if strong, disgust with the wrangles of government.

Only when I read the heading about an unexplained murder committed in the East End did his ears perk up, and then I remembered his acute fascination with criminal cases. Holmes asked me to read the story to him, and I did so, watching his reaction to each detail. He listened intently at first, but when I had got only two-thirds of the way through the story, Holmes suddenly declared, "Ah, like the case of Archer of Chicago!"

He did not explain his outburst, so I started to continue, but Holmes cut me off irritably. "No, no! Stop reading!"  
"But don't you want to know the rest of it?"

"I _know_ the rest. Why should I sit through any more of that inane reporter's sensationalism and idiotic theories? You may read the rest to yourself if you wish, but I don't care to hear anymore." He then went back to his perusal of the agony columns.

How utterly confounding he was! As I silently read to the end, it more than annoyed me that I had no idea who this Archer of Chicago was and what relationship he might have to this current murder in London.

Disregarding how cross he had left me, Holmes rose finally from his chair and bade me good-night before withdrawing to his bedroom.

I do not think he even noticed that I did not wish him good-night in return.

* * *

I found that Holmes had already breakfasted and gone out by the time I rose this morning. He had informed Mrs. Hudson that he would not be home until dinner this evening, so I expect that he is at his work, wherever that might be. I read the morning newspaper by myself and tried not to feel lonely and listless.

I would have ventured outside for a walk, had not the weather been so foul and caused me to ache in my joints, especially my injured shoulder. I stayed in my armchair and passed the time thinking miserably of Murray. Why could he not be here now, massaging me with his hands, soothing me with his words, and tempting me with his kisses, as he had done so frequently in Afghanistan? I wondered if I had betrayed the nature of our relationship when Holmes had asked me about army life last night. I had been guarded in my comments, but who knew how Sherlock Holmes obtained his mystifying knowledge about anything? Perhaps he could read in my eyes or feel in my posture how much I ached to be touched again.

I know I should not dwell on Murray, now that he has been out of my life so long. In fact, I should probably be taking this opportunity to cleanse myself of my sins and adopt a radically different scheme of life. This is a chance to redeem myself, and I would be wilfully perverse to reject it, I know. Yet I cannot help remembering how gruelling it is to attempt being what I am not and how easy it is to just give in to my nature, first with Holmes, then with Murray. With my usual laziness, I concluded in the end that I may be a weak, vile, disgusting creature, but at least I am honest with myself.

After lunch I tried to read a novel, but fell asleep in my chair and remained there until I woke with a start and found Sherlock Holmes leaning over me with a smile. "I hate to disturb you, Doctor, but I think you will want to go wash up before dinner."

When I returned from my bedroom, dinner had already been served, so I took my seat at the table. I noticed that Holmes smelled vaguely of chemicals, and he said that he had been at Bart's laboratory all day, which surprised me, as I thought that his impending laboratory in the corner of our sitting-room was intended to make such trips unnecessary.

"Were you not going to get a table for--?"

"Yes, yes, but listen to what I did today."

He began to tell me in detail about his chemical researches, with the same zeal and fascination as before, but I admit that I followed very little of it. He evidently liked to hear himself talk, so I let him, while my mind drifted elsewhere. Afghanistan. Murray. My shoulder began aching again, and I absently reached to rub it, only to find Holmes's hand already there. I glanced up at him; he looked disconcerted and pulled his hand away, rising from his chair and going over to the hearth.

"There is a chemist's down the block, should you need some pills or salve for it," he said, staring into the fire.

"Thank you."

Holmes stood silently with one hand upon the mantle. I think he had wanted me suddenly, just as I had wanted him in that booth at the Holborn. Desire sometimes creeps up on you that way, as I learned many times whenever I met some attractive man who had done nothing whatsoever to encourage me, but had sparked my passion all the same.

Finally Holmes took up his violin from its case and began to play it slowly, deliberately. Strained, melancholy notes, expressing tension and turbulence. There was no recognisable melody in it, but it had a rhythm and momentum that carried it on through impressive heights of dexterity and passion. It surprised me that such a scientific man should be artistic as well.

He played on into the evening, throwing in bits of brighter compositions as the mood struck him. The music was almost organic, growing and evolving over time.

Since he showed no further interest in eating, I rang the bell for the maid, and her interruption to take away our trays finally caught Holmes's attention. He drifted back from whatever reverie he was in and opened his eyes, glimpsing me. He smiled wryly, as if to say that all was well again and he had realised how silly he had been.

I left him still scraping away rapturously and retired to my bedroom.

* * *

We have lived under one roof for a fortnight now. At first Sherlock Holmes seemed to be a quiet, studious man, early to bed and early to rise. Sometimes he spent his day at the laboratory, or else the dissecting-rooms. Sometimes he walked all over London and afterwards described to me his wandering route by identifying the origin of each mud splash on his trousers. I did not know why it interested him so; perhaps he thought of it as an experiment like his chemical researches, another way to distinguish blood stains from mud stains of various sorts? Anyhow, I tolerated this eccentricity as harmless and amusing.

Yet in the last week Holmes has become incredibly bored and shiftless, lying upon the sofa for days as if he were dead tired of the entire world. I know that he told me he was prone to getting "in the dumps" as he called it, but seeing him lie there vacantly is akin to seeing a brilliant genius enfeebled by old age, or my own brother drunk into a stupor. I do not know how much longer I can leave Holmes alone, as he requested. Does he not have work to go to? What about his mysterious profession? What about getting that table and setting up that laboratory in the corner, like he wanted? I am recovering from my wound and fever, yet I am far more active mentally and physically than Holmes is at this point. At least I read. At least I eat.

* * *

Holmes is up! I did not even have to drag him off the sofa or force-feed him. All he wanted was a visitor, apparently. Mrs. Hudson announced, "Mr. Lestrade," and Holmes miraculously recovered, sitting up and asking curtly that I leave the room.

"What?"

"I'm sorry. Please retire to your bedroom for a bit, Watson, while I have an interview with Lestrade. It's important."

"Very well."

I can hear their muffled talking now, and I wonder who this Lestrade could be. Is he Holmes's lover? Has he been away? Has there been a breakup? Is this a return, a reunion?

* * *

Holmes came to fetch me after half an hour. "Thank you, Watson. Join me for lunch?"

I followed him back to the sitting-room, surprised at the quickness of the interview. "A friend of yours?" I prodded.

"Lestrade? Well, of sorts."

We took our seats and dined together for the first time in days. I was hardly surprised by his ravenous appetite.

"Holmes, don't you still need that table for your laboratory?"

"Oh yes, I must get one today. No use in delaying."

"Indeed. I would help you, but I am seeing Stamford today."

"Stamford, hmm?" He was more absorbed by his meal at the moment.

"I should not be too long, though, and will be back to help you move any furniture to the storage room."

"Very kind, but will your shoulder withstand it? Don't trouble yourself, Doctor. I can have the servants assist me."

And we talked on like that, merrily, as if Holmes had not been practically comatose an hour ago. I determined to see Stamford and find out all he knew about Holmes's depressions, and whether he had ever heard of this chap Lestrade.

I found Stamford easily enough at Bart's but could get no new information out of him. He did however offer me a position, if I felt strong enough to work, but I told him I was not yet ready.

"Oh well. How is it, living with Holmes? Do you get along all right?"

"Yes, fine."

"You haven't solved it, have you?"

"His depression? No, that's why I am asking you--"

"No! The mystery! The mystery of Holmes! Where does his secret knowledge come from, and what shall he use it for, good or evil?" He was having far too much fun, and I began to remember why Stamford had never been a particular crony of mine in the old days.  
I bade him good day and went home to Baker Street.

Sherlock Holmes had already returned with his table and was setting up his laboratory in a frenzy of activity. Nothing could match his energy when the working fit struck him.

"Holmes, careful! Let me help you with that."

He smiled and hummed a tune cheerfully. "How was Stamford?"

"Obnoxious as ever!"

He chuckled at me. "You look almost as furious as you were when you shoved me against the wall and ravished me."

"Holmes!" I glanced about anxiously to reassure myself that we were entirely alone. Neither of us had alluded to our dirty episode in the closet since that lunch at the Holborn.

"Very well, I won't embarrass you, Doctor."

In light of his giddy, reckless behaviour, I made sure to watch Holmes carefully for the rest of the day and saw that he had a proper dinner too. He talked the strangest rubbish about the solar system and brains being like crowded attics, so that I am not sure whether I ought to take him to an alienist to have him sorted out. After dinner, he returned to his laboratory and worked with his chemicals long into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Holmes's morocco case holds his hypodermic needle. His cocaine use is not at all illegal, nor is it even medically frowned upon yet, but he does not want to reveal such private things.  
2\. Holmes is 4 years younger than Watson in this story. Watson is born in 1853, and Holmes in 1857.  
3\. Murray is Watson's orderly, mentioned in the first chapter of _A Study in Scarlet_. Murray bravely rescues Watson when he is struck by the Jezail bullet.  
4\. Watson's alcoholic brother is mentioned in the first chapter of _Sign of Four_, when Watson inherits his watch and Holmes makes deductions from it.  
5\. Psychiatrists used to be called alienists, because mentally ill people were supposed to be "alienated" from their right minds.


	4. The Book of Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally some frank discussion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Watson was wounded at Maiwand on July 27, 1880, fell ill for some months, then was shipped back to England on the _Orontes_ in October. Arriving a month later, he lodged in a hotel for a while, then met Holmes sometime in early 1881. So it has been many months since he was able to even look for companionship.  
2\. Molly houses are clandestine places, including taverns and private homes, where sodomites gathered to socialize and hookup.

Visitor after visitor these days! It was a uniformed railway porter this time. I never imagined that Sherlock Holmes had so many acquaintances--men and women, young and old, of every class and origin. Still, Lestrade remains the most frequent visitor, calling on Holmes three or four times a week. I had the chance to glimpse sight of him, and he does not seem very attractive to me--a sallow, rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow. One would think that Holmes could do better than that. Who are the other visitors? Promiscuous affairs? But none of them, including Lestrade, is ever invited back into Holmes's bedroom, and I never hear any sounds beyond the muffled noises of conversation. Who are they?

Holmes apologised again as he let me out, then poured me a drink at the gasogene. "Thank you for your patience. I have to use this room as a place of business, and these people are my clients."

Clients. I weighed the word in my mind. A blackmailer did not have "clients"; he had victims. Still, perhaps the term was Holmes's way of hiding his disreputable profession. I cannot firmly decide on Holmes being the blackmailer of all those people, or else the lover of them.

"Watson," he sat down opposite me. "I have been meaning to ask you a question."

"Yes?" I sipped my drink. I liked that he sometimes called me Watson, instead of Doctor.

"What did you mean by 'I keep a bull-pup'? You said that when I asked you for your vices."

"Bull-pup? Oh, I meant I have a volatile temper. Sorry."

"Ah! I tried to deduce the meaning myself but it proved rather too obscure for me. You obviously did not keep a dog, not even in secret. There's never a dog hair on you."

"You ought to have asked me sooner." It was quite absurd that he should be confounded by such a minor point, when he had known everything else about me readily enough.

He chuckled and leaned back in his chair, eyeing me over his drink. "Another thing I wanted to ask you, Watson--do you, do you have any visitors that you intend to bring to Baker Street? You have observed my clients' comings and goings, and have kindly accommodated me by getting out of the way. Should you have any company of your own, I would of course get out of your way as well.

I realised uncomfortably that Holmes was asking me about my current love life, my possible "company" in my bedroom. It embarrassed me greatly to know that he would be aware whenever I had a lover with me.

"I shall not bring anyone here!" I snapped.

"Why not?" he replied. "If you meet at a hotel, it costs money, and there are records of who has stayed with whom. You might be identified afterward, even if you used aliases. If you meet here instead, my discretion is at your disposal, since I already know that you are partial to men. I can assist by making sure that Mrs. Hudson and her servants are not nearby."

"Holmes! I don't want to talk about it. It's none of your business what I do."

"I only wished to help."

"Don't help!"

He raised his eyebrows at me and put down his drink, folding his hands upon his lap. He shrugged and was silent, gazing into the fire.

I sighed uneasily. To be fair, his question was not all that different from my own curiosity about his possible lovers; he had merely defied expectation by asking me out loud. More importantly, he was offering to help keep my secret safe, a very generous and unusual offer, considering the substantial risk involved. If I accepted his help, would that make him willing to confide in me about his own romantic life? I could not be certain.

"I'm sorry," I said slowly. "I should not have been so riled. I don't know how to discuss my private life with you. I still feel that I hardly know you at all."

He looked at me encouragingly. "I understand that you are apprehensive. It is a delicate subject, and I too am a private man. Yet it seems a waste to me to not rely on an ally when you can find one. I have no wish to harm you, Watson." He gestured at the room around us. "You have helped me to have all this. I do not need names or faces, just times when I must make sure that no inquisitive ear is around. It can be a simple, pre-arranged signal between us."

I cleared my throat and stared into the depths of my drink. "I am alone at present," I admitted awkwardly. "I have had difficulty meeting anyone for many months now."

"Ah," he answered softly. "Perhaps I can suggest one or two places where you may discreetly look for companionship."

"What about you?" I ventured, perhaps too inquisitively. "Where do you go to meet... people?"

Holmes regarded me with visible surprise. "I thought you had noticed, Watson; you observe me rather closely. I do not 'meet people.' I have no use for such affairs, for I devote my time and energy solely to my work."

I found that idea remarkable, and rather hard to believe. "Your work? What is--?" Before I could finish, he rose from his chair and retreated immediately to his bedroom. Strangely, that question seems more intrusive to him than any question about sex.

* * *

Holmes worked avidly at his chemicals, in between visits from his many clients. Having remembered his promise to suggest meeting-places to me, he handed me a note containing the addresses of several establishments that cater to deviant tastes. I wondered just how he knew of these molly houses, if it were true that he was no longer interested in unnatural sex.

Were he a stranger to me, with his obsession for science and other weird interests, I might indeed believe that he was one of those odd men utterly oblivious and unresponsive to carnal pleasures. Yet I had been his sexual partner once, and he had shown great passion and delight in our acts. There still seemed to be such passion in his eyes every now and then.

When we were alone this afternoon, I asked if he would accompany me to the addresses on his list. "I already know of some of these places; I have tried going before but was too cowardly to speak to anyone. I don't know how to behave."

He hesitated, weighing the risk of helping me. "I suppose I could accompany you for an evening."

"Yes, and of course you could find someone for yourself as well."

He eyed me sardonically and shook his head. "I do not want someone, Watson. Pray do not imagine that I am lonely."

"Surely, Holmes!"

"Watson, I told you before--"

"But you are a man, Holmes! A real man with hunger and desire. I know that much from our... encounter."

He quirked a half smile. "You must consider me as you do a Catholic priest, consecrated to higher purposes."

"Higher purposes!" I scoffed. "Your chemicals and your mud splashes? Your cavalcade of clients? Your minutiae of obscure knowledge and hoarded secrets? Whatever your private little business is, it is hardly of much consequence, and is not worth your happiness!"

He glared at me. "I did not know my happiness concerned you so!"

"I think you deny yourself for all the wrong reasons. One doesn't just change--"

He said nothing and stormed out the door. He stayed out all day and into the night, so that I am not sure whether he will even be home when I wake up tomorrow morning. I wonder where he could have gone.

* * *

I woke this morning and could hear Holmes having his breakfast, so I rose much earlier than usual and hurried to catch him, lest he go out again to avoid me. I need not have worried; he was waiting for me.

As I took my seat opposite him, he wordlessly tossed a magazine before me. The page to which he had opened it contained an article with a pencil mark at the heading. Not understanding the relevance, I ignored it and tried talking to him. "Holmes, I went too far--"

Waving my words away, Holmes pointed insistently at the article and would not talk to me. He rang the bell to have my breakfast sent up, and just sat there silently munching his toast.

So I resigned myself to the longish article and began to read. It was called "The Book of Life," and seemed to be a remarkable mixture of shrewdness and absurdity. According to the writer, an observant man could learn astonishing things through an accurate and systematic examination of the world around him. By applying careful reasoning to a person's appearance and demeanour, a logician could deduce all manner of "facts" about that person. The writer called this art the "Science of Deduction and Analysis," and he used many far-fetched examples to illustrate his point.

"What ineffable twaddle!" I cried, fed up with the boastful article.

My outburst had startled the maid, who was arriving with my breakfast. I sheepishly apologised to her and put the magazine aside.

When we were alone again, Holmes finally spoke to me. "You don't like it?" he asked in a strangely cautious tone.

"The article? No. I don't know why you wanted me to read such rubbish. About yesterday--"

"The arguments do not convince you?" he persisted.

"I don't deny that it is smartly written. It irritates me, though. It is evidently the theory of some armchair lounger who evolves all these neat little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own study. It is not practical."

"Practical?" He looked impatiently at me. "I could give you a practical demonstration of the theory right now, Watson. I _have_ given it to you repeatedly, and you take no notice!"

"Notice of what?" I protested.

Calming himself, Holmes met my eyes and sat forward. "I wrote the article myself."

"You?" I glanced at the article's heading again. The author was not listed.

"I could not have Stamford and the rest chiding me about it," he explained.

I believed him, for his manner seemed sincere enough, and I could sense now that Holmes had some particular reason for drawing my attention to this article. He was driving at something behind these arcane theories.

"I have a turn," he began, "both for observation and deduction. The theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so chimerical are really extremely practical--so practical that I depend upon them for my bread and cheese."

"How?" I prompted. I pulled my chair nearer to him, hardly daring to believe that Holmes was at last willing to reveal what he had hidden from me for weeks. He must trust me now.

Holmes sighed and came to the point reluctantly. "Well, I have a trade of my own," he shrugged. "I suppose I am the only one in the world. I'm a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is."

I did not understand, failing to see anything unique at first in his professed trade.

Having once launched upon the subject, Holmes was eager to expound upon it. "Here in London we have lots of government detectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault, they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent. They lay all the evidence before me, and I am generally able, by help of my knowledge of the history of crime, to set them straight. There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can't unravel the thousand and first."

I thought of Holmes's clients. "Then, Lestrade's numerous visits--?"

"Lestrade is a well-known Yard detective. He got himself into a fog recently over a forgery case, and that is what brought him here."

Not a romance? He seemed a most persistent suitor. "And these other people?"

"They are mostly sent on by private inquiry agencies. They are all people who are in trouble about something and want a little enlightening. I listen to their story, they listen to my comments, and then I pocket my fee."

I suppose it had to be an innocent explanation, considering that no intimacies took place. Yet all this armchair reasoning seemed quite improbable to me. "Do you mean to say that without leaving your room you can unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of, although they have seen every detail for themselves?"

He nodded. In most cases, it was all exceedingly simple for him, what with his specialised knowledge and his principles of deduction. He meant it, seriously.

I remained sceptical, and also pondered the fact that this profession was so dear to Holmes that he had given up love affairs for this "higher purpose." I doubted this could be a healthy occupation.

Holmes finally descended from abstract discourse to practical demonstration. "You appeared to be surprised when I told you that you had come from Afghanistan.

I remembered the incident at Bart's. "Of course! You could only have found out through some underhanded means."

"Nothing of the sort." He looked hurt that I had suspected him of trickery. "I knew you came from Afghanistan through a simple train of thought. With long practice, this kind of reasoning is now habitual, swift, and largely unconscious on my part. I looked at you and thought, 'Here is Morris again'--I knew that Morris was merely your alias from years ago, but that was how I remembered you--'Here is Morris again, in truth Watson, that naughty doctor I knew five years ago. Though he has not given up medicine, he has an air of a military man now. Clearly he became an army doctor. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and I know that is not the natural tint of his skin. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.' The whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished."

I was astonished all over again. "My shoulder," I corrected him quietly. "My wound is in my shoulder."

"Ah, I am sorry. I had not observed you long enough at that point to discern that your wound was in your shoulder, rather than your arm."

"I see." My throat felt dry. So this was how Sherlock Holmes knew so much about me. He was not spying or going behind my back at all; he had no clairvoyance and no ulterior motives. He just... knew me, at a glance. It was as simple as that, and I did not know what to think of it all.

I frowned, staring at my plate. "I do not remember telling you I was Morris."

"No, you gave me no name. But I spoke to Douglas afterward, offering to assist in finding you, by way of apology. I had to disappoint him a few days later, however, by proving to him that all the James Morrises present at the university simply were not you. He was mystified, but gave up pursuit."

"I see," I repeated, not knowing what else to say. Then I recalled the things he had known about me five years ago. "At your university, how did you know--?"

"I did start to explain it to you, Watson," he pursed his lips, "but you weren't in the mood to listen then. To begin with, there was your university gown. Most people would not have noticed the slight differences between it and our own gowns, as they hardly ever look closely at such common apparel. But I did look closely, and I did notice. Also, the dirt on your shoes showed that you had been at the railway station, so I deduced that you were a merely a visitor to town, pretending to be a student.

"Being so resourceful, you had obviously come to the Medical School because you were in medicine yourself. You looked slightly older than us undergraduates, and you knew more about chemistry than you pretended to know for Douglas, so I hazarded a guess that perhaps you were already a practising Bachelor of Medicine. I could not, however, get confirmation of this from you, as you seemed not to be listening to me any longer.

"Lastly, I knew you had come for some clandestine purpose, as you had gone to so much trouble and were quite fearful of being discovered. You were impulsive and emotional, leaving your gown behind where either I or Douglas might take it and through it eventually find out which university you really belonged to. I had not quite narrowed down your nefarious purpose by the time that you kissed me."

The memory of that day grew more fresh the more Holmes talked about it. I had so many unanswered questions. "Why weren't you paying attention to your chemical research?"

"That? Oh, I was repeating an analysis I had done the day before, which had taken a few hours. I merely needed to verify the results, and in the meantime I stayed to observe people."

"And I wound up in your sights?"

"Yes."

I met his eyes. "Did you really want me? Your response was genuine?"

Holmes nodded gravely. "Watson, do not imagine that I would have done all that merely for a chance to observe you more." He showed a sparkle of humour. "I did not see you _that_ well in the closet."

"No," I admitted. "You said--you said you had thought of me afterward. For how long?"

He began to look embarrassed by my sentiment, and he shrugged evasively. "One does not forget such an experience quickly."

"You said you considered trying to find me. To visit me too."

He said, "I wondered whether I ought to have kept your gown, held onto a definite clue by which I could trace you." But he quickly added, "However, I soon realized that seeking you out would be unwise. Had you wanted to see me again, you would have asked my name or told me yours."

"I am sorry. I regret--"

"Watson, stop it! You used me for your pleasure. I did not mind. It was not more than that; it was not some romance."

He was right, of course, though he sounded a little inhuman about it. Perhaps I remembered that encounter more strongly and more fondly than he; he had been my first, and he had tasted sweet.

Holmes took up the magazine again, indicating his article. "So my theories are not rubbish after all?"

I winced. "You could have warned me." But I shrugged it off casually. "Yes, fine, I was wrong. Are you happy?"

He still pressed, "What do you think of my profession?"

"You being a detective?"

"A consulting detective," he insisted. "What do you think of it?"

I peered at him curiously. Sherlock Holmes did not seem to be the sort of person to seek approval. "What should I think? I'm confused. I'm astounded. You have been acting suspiciously all these weeks, hiding your profession from me like some precious secret, some matter of national security. Now for some reason you suddenly decide to reveal it. Why did you not tell me before?"

He looked chagrined. "It is very delicate. I am wary of you or anyone knowing too much about me or my work. Any unofficial detective must respect his clients' privacy."

"Is that all?" I felt insulted. "Did you think I would intrude?"

"No, no. Of course I know you are a trustworthy man, and many of my cases are inconsequential matters." He sighed, then admitted quietly, "I am a private man, Watson. I cannot grow too close to someone else; it is against all I have been working for. My objectivity would fail, my methods would suffer. If I ever got comfortable with you--" He swallowed and suddenly looked at me very directly, whispering, "Are you trying to be my room-mate, my friend, or my lover?"

Had I even known what to say then, I had no chance to answer, for there came a knock at our door, and we each pulled back sharply, realising belatedly how close we had leaned in to each other.

"Yes, Mrs. Hudson?" I said.

Our landlady peered in questioningly at us. "Are you gentlemen finished with your breakfast? My maid has not heard your ring."

A glance at the clock told me that our early breakfast was turning into a lingering brunch, and no doubt, the good woman must be trying to prepare for lunch. Holmes and I both rose from the table with embarrassment.

"It's our fault entirely, Mrs. Hudson," I spoke up. "We were caught up in a discussion. Here, let me help you."

"No, no," she spoke warmly. "I'll ring, and we will be out of your way soon."

As our dishes were stacked and removed, I stood awkwardly nearby while I could feel Holmes's presence somewhere in my periphery.

"Are you gentlemen finished with the morning _Times_?"

"Oh," I quickly retrieved it from the tray, where it had lain unread. "Thank you, Mrs. Hudson."

"And this magazine?"

I nervously snatched that too. "I'm sorry, we've left such a mess..."

Mrs. Hudson waved away my apologies. "No, it is just as bachelors should be. It is so lovely to have the house full of people again." She hummed pleasantly and soon departed down the stairs with the maid, taking away our half-finished breakfast with them.

I turned to Holmes and saw that he was shaking with tension. I dropped the newspaper and magazine where I stood and rushed to his side. "Holmes."

He swallowed and tried to control his frayed nerves. "No. No, Watson. I'm all right." He withdrew from my touch, stepping back two paces.

"You are not comfortable living with me?" I ventured.

"Sometimes." His eyes were evasive.

"I'm sorry. I'll find some other rooms, then."

"No, Watson. Don't." He took hold of my arm. "That would not be fair. My question was... imprudent, and you should disregard it. I do understand that you are not making advances toward me. There are just moments that my judgement clouds and I think--well, it is not your fault what I think."

"These moments," I stepped nearer, "are they frequent? What should I--?"

"They pass," he said simply. "They always do." He released me and went to his armchair, where he sank down with a weary sigh. Then he pensively touched his fingertips together. "The question is, does my profession meet your standards?"

"My standards? What do you mean?"

"Yesterday you told me that my profession was of little consequence and was not worth my happiness. I tell you, Watson, my profession is of great consequence to me, my clients, and their clients, as the case may be."

I regretted my hasty words. "I'm sure that it is."

He smiled smugly. "Furthermore, my profession is the very thing that brings me happiness and satisfaction, so it can surely be regarded as a legitimate reason for me to give up those idle extras of life that I do not need."

On that point I still protested. "You do not need a lover to fulfil you? Honestly?"

"Honestly." He spoke without hesitation, his eyes quiet clear.

I could only exhale and shake my head, wondering at his strength of will. I looked at my note with the addresses again, knowing that I could not last alone for much longer. Murray, the devil, had made me too used to nightly fornication. I sat in my own armchair and glanced at Holmes. "I suppose you won't come with me now."

He studied my face. "If your trepidation is genuine, and was not merely part of your ploy to fix me up with a lover, then yes, I will support you." He smiled at me. "You definitely look in need of some ravishing."

"Holmes!"

He laughed, not unkindly.


	5. A Tangled Skein

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holmes is Watson's wingman, then the murder case begins. _A Tangled Skein_ is Doyle's original title for _A Study in Scarlet_ in his manuscript.

After lunch and reading the _Times_, Holmes sat smoking in his armchair, looking vacant and saying nothing. I had time to write out his entire revelation to me about his profession, yet he scarcely moved in all that time. It worried me. It was not just that he had promised me he would be ready at nine to take me out; I simply could not stand the thought of another week-long depression.

I took one of my mystery novels down from the bookshelf to distract me. I skimmed it awhile, but soon returned to the thought of Holmes. So I made a stab at conversation.

"You remind me of Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories."

Holmes glared at me and sat up. "No doubt," he said, "you think you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin. Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine."

I gazed at Holmes wide-eyed. Evidently he did read fiction, and I had touched a nerve with my comparison. "Have you read Gaboriau's works? Does Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective?"

Holmes sniffed sardonically. "Lecoq was a miserable bungler. He had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty-four hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It might have made a textbook for detectives to teach them what to avoid."

I did not know whether to be angry or delighted. Holmes dismissed both my favourite detectives in the most conceited manner possible. And yet, at least it had got him talking.

Holmes continued on, lamenting tragically that there were no crimes and no criminals worthy of him these days. His natural talent and his years of study were all going to waste. "There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling villainy with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it."

I laughed out loud, and he scowled at me.

"Watson, I am serious!"

"That's the best part," I said, grinning at him ridiculously.

He looked so petulant and childlike that I got up from my chair and kissed him then. Just a faint brush of his lips, and then I stood back, watching his reaction.

He blinked at me, trying to decide between outrage and anxiety. Then he took a different route altogether. "If you are practising for tonight, Watson, I suggest you be less chaste with your kisses, should you intend to bring a man home." He managed a smile.

I picked up my book again and withdrew to my bedroom, to give him the impression that I was in here reading. I have not heard him stir in my absence; hopefully he has not sunk back into a depressive state. We shall dine soon, and then prepare for our night out. I must think up some lines to use at the molly houses.

I do not even care anymore about Holmes's remark about my desperation. One does not just jump in and find a new partner when the old one is gone; I have to find my footing again, my lost confidence. If I have no luck tonight, I'll tease Holmes some more about his notion that I am trying to seduce him again. Maybe I am, because I know he won't respond anymore. There's nothing more enticing than a challenge.

* * *

Such a headache this morning. Why didn't Holmes restrict my consumption of alcohol?

Last night we must have been to half the addresses on the list. The men were mostly effeminate and stagey to a degree that I found distasteful. One cannot just sit upon my lap without my permission or interest! Still Holmes would nudge me to this or that fellow, and some wanted to hear about my wound and make unfunny jokes. I suppose I was too finicky, but why should I want to take somebody that I didn't actually like?

Holmes argued that I took _him_, having just declared that I hated him. I said that was different, and tried explaining why, but was very incoherent. I sulked with my drink until I realised that Holmes kept plucking my sleeve because he had been propositioned by a variety of men and wanted to escape them.

We left and proceeded to one more molly house, where I kept thinking about Murray and seeing him everywhere. I am not sure what mumblings I let slip out before Holmes took me home at last and put me to bed. I think I did something idiotic like kiss him. He said good-night firmly and left me. I should not be surprised if he locked his bedroom door against me.

What is he going to say at breakfast?

* * *

Suffering through my headache, I made my belated appearance at breakfast. "I apologise for the dreadful night, Holmes. You were far too kind and patient."

Holmes looked somewhat weary, but evidently he had not drunk as much as I. He poured tea for me and urged me to drink it.

I said I could not stomach anything just now. I put my head down on the table and groaned. "Must it be so bright in here?"

Holmes rose and adjusted the curtains so as to dim the light in the room. "You should not be out of bed. Would you rather I inform Mrs. Hudson that you are ill, and have her make you something so you can sleep?"

I sighed. "No, I shall get over it. It's my just punishment, anyway."

"Punishment?" He shook his head. "My dear Watson, you didn't do anything remotely immoral last night. Not even kiss a man."

"Didn't I kiss you?" I squinted at him.

He coughed and looked out the window. "Twice. Still, it led to nothing, and you should not drag yourself about like a sinner in need of penitence. Whenever you do find someone new, I shall not regard you as morally bankrupt and degraded; you are a man with needs."

I wondered why the same did not apply to him, as a man.

"Here, do have some tea. Or would you prefer brandy?"

I finally obliged him by sitting up and sipping my tea, while Holmes resumed his seat at the table. I watched him eat awhile, but soon found the sight too nauseating and turned away. In the more subdued light of our room, I was now able to gaze out the window into the street below.

"I wonder what that fellow is looking for?" I asked, pointing to a stalwart, plainly dressed individual who was walking slowly down the other side of the street, looking anxiously at the numbers. He had a large blue envelope in his hand, and was evidently the bearer of a message.

"You mean the retired sergeant of Marines," Holmes remarked.

I furrowed my brow at him. Certainly I no longer wondered at Holmes's ability to deduce startling facts about me, at close range and with such history between us, but it stretched the limits of my belief to think that Holmes could at a glance detect facts about a complete stranger across the street.

With astonishing luck, the man whom we were watching caught sight of the number on our door and ran rapidly across the roadway. We heard a loud knock, a deep voice below, and heavy steps ascending the stair.

"For Mr. Sherlock Holmes," he said, stepping into the room and handing my friend the letter.

I saw my opportunity to indulge my curiosity and to test Holmes's far-fetched deduction. I asked the messenger for his trade and he answered that he was a commissionaire, though his uniform was away for repairs. Then I asked the man's former profession, and to my shock he replied that he had been a sergeant in the Royal Marine Light Infantry.

Seeing that Holmes had no answer for the message, the commissionaire clicked his heels together, raised his hand in salute, and was gone.

Holmes had finished reading the delivered note, and now sat back pensively in his chair.

I asked him, "How in the world did you deduce that?"

"Deduce what?" said he, petulantly.

"Why, that he was a retired sergeant of Marines."

"I have no time for trifles!" he responded brusquely. After a moment, Holmes smiled and apologised for his rudeness. He explained the process of his deduction, beginning with the blue anchor tattooed on the back of the man's hand. The man's military carriage and regulation side whiskers showed he was a marine rather than a sailor. Finally, his air of command as he walked, his being middle-aged, and his steady, respectable demeanour suggested that he was a sergeant.

I praised Holmes for the wonderful feat, but he dismissed it as commonplace and now referred to the letter in his hand. "I said just yesterday that there were no criminals. It appears that I am wrong--look at this!" He threw over to me the note which the commissionaire had brought, and I read it.

The letter detailed a terrible discovery during the night at 3, Lauriston Gardens, off the Brixton Road. The policeman on duty saw a light in an empty house, and upon investigation, he found the door open and inside the front room the corpse of a well-dressed gentleman lying on the floor. There had been no robbery, nor any evidence as to how the man met his death. The note requested that Holmes come round to the house before twelve to give his opinion on the puzzling matter, and the signature was that of a Tobias Gregson.

"Gregson is the smartest of the Scotland Yarders," Holmes explained to me. "He and Lestrade are the pick of a bad lot. They are both quick and energetic, but conventional--shockingly so. They have their knives into one another, too. They are as jealous as a pair of professional beauties. There will be some fun over this case if they are both put upon the scent."

I sat amazed at the calm way Holmes rippled on. "Surely there is not a moment to be lost," I cried. "Shall I ring and order you a cab?"

"I'm not sure about whether I shall go. I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather--that is, when the fit is on me, for I can be spry enough at times."

I was beginning to suspect that Holmes was lapsing into another long depression, such as I had feared yesterday. I argued that he should take the case and get out of the rooms. After some reluctance, Holmes finally agreed to go and rose from our table.

"I may have a laugh at them, if I have nothing else." He hustled on his overcoat and then beckoned to me. "Come on! Get your hat."

I blinked; were not all his cases private from me? "You wish me to come?"

"Yes, if you have nothing better to do."

I shrugged. My hangover had faded somewhat by now, and I was feeling more myself, so I joined him. A minute later we were both in a hansom, driving furiously for the Brixton Road.

On the ride, Holmes talked cheerily of Cremona fiddles and the differences between a Stradivarius and an Amati. It seemed inappropriate to me for him to be prattling away on such airy matters, but he protested that he could not discuss or theorise about the mysterious death until he had all the data and evidence before him.

We soon neared our destination, and Holmes had the driver stop more than a hundred yards away from the house, so that he might approach it on foot and thoroughly examine the surrounding area. I walked with him, puzzled by his concentration outside the house, and was relieved when we finally came to the door.

We were met by Gregson, a tall, white-faced, flaxen-haired man who rushed forward and wrung Holmes's hand with enthusiasm. "It is indeed kind of you to come," he said. "I have had everything left untouched."

"Except that!" Holmes declared, pointing at the pathway where the wet clayey soil was trampled with numerous footprints. "If a herd of buffaloes had passed along, there could not be a greater mess. No doubt, however, you had drawn your own conclusions, Gregson, before you permitted this."

"I have had so much to do inside the house," answered Gregson evasively. I felt sorry for him to be scolded by Holmes, for he was a most attractive-looking chap. If only Holmes's frequent visitor had been this Gregson, rather than Lestrade!

Gregson mentioned Lestrade's presence on the case, and shifted the blame for the mess to his colleague.

Holmes talked more about the case with him, rudely neglecting to introduce me to Gregson all the while, and indeed, the Yard detective took no notice of my presence at all. I was annoyed and disheartened; still, an affair with a policeman was probably unlikely, for it would be the man's sworn duty to arrest me if I made sexual advances toward him at all.

Holmes soon led the three of us into the house, to the dirty, unfurnished front room that held the body. It was a grim sight--a dead man of about forty-thee years old, middle-sized, broad-shouldered, with crisp curling black hair, and a short stubbly beard. He was dressed in a heavy broadcloth frock coat and waistcoat, with light-coloured trousers, and immaculate collar and cuffs. A top hat, well brushed and trim, was placed upon the floor beside him. His hands were clenched and his arms thrown abroad, while his lower limbs were interlocked, as though his death struggle had been a grievous one. On his rigid face there stood an expression of horror, and, as it seemed to me, of hatred, such as I have never seen upon human features.

I felt so sickened that I looked away to the dark, grimy room with its peeling wallpaper and its solitary window, and it was the less disturbing view by far.

Lestrade, lean and ferret-like as ever, stood by the doorway and greeted Holmes, then myself. "Dr. Watson?" he ventured, shaking my hand. He did remember, then, what little he saw of me at Baker Street. He might have wondered why I had come, but did not remark upon it. The case was all that the three detectives principally talked about, and I stood there just observing and not knowing what to do with myself.

Holmes examined the dead man intently and verified that there was indeed no wound, despite the splashes of blood laying all around the room. "Then, of course, this blood belongs to a second individual--presumably the murderer, if murder has been committed." He muttered about some other death in Utrecht in 1834, which I suppose was somehow similar to this death, though I had never heard of it.

When Holmes finished inspecting the body, they proceeded to remove it to the mortuary, but in lifting it onto the stretcher, they uncovered fresh evidence, in the form of a ring that tinkled down and rolled across the floor.

Lestrade retrieved it and held it up to view. "There's been a woman here. It's a woman's wedding ring." Lestrade was mystified, and Gregson worried that the ring would complicate matters, but Holmes was nonchalant about it.

Holmes asked next about the contents of the dead man's pockets, and Gregson led us out again to the hall, where a litter of objects rested upon one of the bottom steps of the stairs. He detailed the items as being several pieces of gold jewellery, along with calling cards, a book, loose money, and letters. The cards, as well as the initials upon the man's linen, showed him to be Enoch J. Drebber of Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A, although the book and one letter bore the name of Joseph Stangerson.

Gregson had already made inquiries about this Stangerson fellow, but had as yet no response.

Then Holmes strangely began to pester Gregson about his telegraph to Cleveland for information. What _kind_ of information had Gregson asked for? Did he not think there was something in particular to ask about? Was he not going to send another telegram? I was not surprised when Gregson soon took offence at this questioning.

Fortunately, we had a distraction soon from Lestrade, who had remained behind in the front room. He came up to us excitedly, looking exultant and highly pleased with himself. "Mr. Gregson, I have just made a discovery of the highest importance, and one which would have been overlooked had I not made a careful examination of the walls."

He proudly led us towards a dingy corner of the room and in a triumphant manner, he lit a match and held it up to reveal a dramatic sight. In blood-red letters upon the yellow plaster, we could now read a single word--RACHE.

"What do you think of that?" For all his unattractiveness, I admired Lestrade then. He explained, "This was overlooked because it was in the darkest corner of the room, and no one thought of looking there. The murderer has written it with his or her own blood. See this smear where it has trickled down the wall! That disposes of the idea of suicide anyhow. Why was that corner chosen to write it on? I will tell you. See that candle on the mantelpiece. It was lit at the time, and if it was lit this corner would be the brightest instead of the darkest portion of the wall."

This seemed quite good reasoning on Lestrade's part, but Gregson did not think as much of the discovery, asking what the word could mean.

"Mean? Why, it means that the writer was going to put the female name Rachel, but was disturbed before he or she had time to finish. You mark my words, when this case comes to be cleared up, you will find that a woman named Rachel has something to do with it."

Sherlock Holmes, most ungraciously, had begun to laugh at Lestrade, ruffling the little man's temper. In his place, I would certainly have been infuriated too.

Holmes made scant apology and then proceeded to examine the room as closely as he had the body. He trotted about with a tape measure and a magnifying glass from his pocket. Ignoring us for some twenty minutes or more, Holmes scrutinised every part of the room and mumbled things to himself all the while.

Gregson and Lestrade watched his movements with contempt, and when Holmes at last finished, they asked, "What do you think of it, sir?"

Holmes smiled. "It would be robbing you of the credit of the case if I were to presume to help you. You are doing so well now that it would be a pity for anyone to interfere." He spoke with such a world of sarcasm in his voice, that I wondered why the Yard detectives tolerated him and asked his advice at all. Holmes then asked for the name and address of the constable who discovered the body, and Lestrade gave it.

"Come along, Doctor," Holmes beckoned. "We shall go and look him up." Before leaving, though, he turned back and addressed the Yard detectives once more. "I'll tell you one thing which may help you in the case. There has been murder done, and the murderer was a man. He was more than six feet high, was in the prime of life, had small feet for his height, wore coarse, square-toed boots, and smoked a Trichinopoly cigar. He came here with his victim in a four-wheeled cab, which was drawn by a horse with three old shoes and one new one on his off fore-leg. In all probability the murderer had a florid face, and the finger-nails of his right hand were remarkably long. These are only a few indications, but they may assist you."

After hearing this astonishing speech, Lestrade and Gregson glanced at each other with incredulous smiles.  
"If this man was murdered," Lestrade queried, "how was it done?"

"Poison," Holmes answered. "One other thing, Lestrade, 'rache' is the German for 'revenge'; so don't lose your time looking for Miss Rachel."

With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals open mouthed behind him.

I hurried after Holmes, and he led me to the nearest telegraph office, whence he dispatched a long telegram. Then he hailed us a cab and we drove to the address of John Rance, the constable.

On the way, I asked Holmes how he could possibly be sure of so many details about the murderer. He enlightened me by describing the tracks upon the street that had told him about the presence of the four-wheeled cab, and all the footmarks in the clay outside the house that had told him of two men leaving the cab and going inside, one wearing patent-leather boots--which matched the murdered man's shoes--and the other wearing square-toed boots. Holmes had examined the stride of that second man and so determined his height and health.

I asked about the other details, the finger-nails and the Trichinopoly, and for these Holmes also had an explanation based on his scrutiny of the room. He told me he had made a special study of cigar ashes and tobacco, and could tell different brands apart with a mere glance. Holmes would not answer my question about the florid face, however, so I had to settle for his discussion of how the RACHE had been written on the wall as a ruse by someone imitating a German.

"I'm not going to tell you much more of the case, Doctor," he said suddenly.

I wondered if I had offended him with my interest. "Why?"

He shrugged. "You know a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his trick; and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all."

I shook my head, amazed that beneath all his bravado he still had moments of insecurity. "I shall never do that. You have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world."

I smiled when he reacted with a flush of pleasure, and his grey eyes turned to mine very warmly. He was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl can be of her beauty.

Remembering himself after a moment, he cleared his throat. "I'll tell you one other thing," he offered. "Patent-leathers and Square-toes came in the same cab, and they walked down the pathway together as friendly as possible--arm in arm, in all probability." He chuckled and shrugged at my naughty thought.

"When they got inside, they walked up and down the room--or rather, Patent-leathers stood still while Square-toes walked up and down. I could read all that in the dust; and I could read that as he walked he grew more and more excited. That is shown by the increased length of his strides. He was talking all the while, and working himself up, no doubt, into a fury. Then the tragedy occurred. I've told you all I know myself now, for the rest is mere surmise and conjecture. We have a good working basis, however, on which to start. We must hurry up, for I want to go to Halle's concert to hear Norman Neruda this afternoon."

A murder and a concert, I thought. I did not know why Holmes had invited me to accompany him today, after keeping me isolated from his profession for so long, but I was growing deeply interested in his case and hoped he would continue to confide in me.  
We arrived in Audley Court, where the constable lived, and asked the driver to wait for us while we inquired at number 46. Constable John Rance was in bed, and we awaited him in a little front parlour.

He appeared presently, looking dishevelled and irritable at being disturbed. When Holmes mentioned his connexion to the Yard and asked about the case, Rance grumbled, "I made my report at the office."

Holmes took a half-sovereign from his pocket as incentive. "We thought that we should like to hear it all from your own lips."

Rance became more cooperative, and sat down upon the sofa. He narrated the events of the night in detail, but as he came to the part where he had spied the light in the empty house and went to the door, Holmes interrupted.

"You stopped, and then walked back to the garden gate. What did you do that for?"

Rance gave a violent jump and stared with amazement at Holmes, no doubt having the eerie feeling that Holmes must have been there observing him. The constable explained his urge to go back and fetch another constable to help him investigate the lonely house. After finding no one nearby, he had returned to the house and gone inside, where he found the burning candle and the dead body. After examining his discovery, Rance had gone outside again and fetched help by blowing his whistle.

Holmes asked whether the street was empty at that time, and the constable replied dismissively that there had been a drunk fellow leaning on the gate railings and singing nonsense when he came out.

"What sort of man was he?" Holmes asked with great interest.

Rance did not see the relevance of this digression and had to be pressed to recall the man's face and dress. "A long chap, with a red face, the lower part muffled round." The drunk had also been wearing a brown overcoat, and it seemed definitely to be the very man Holmes had described as Square-toes, the murderer.

Rance, unfortunately, had been in a hurry to attend to the corpse, so he had attached no importance to the drunk and had let him go. This frustrated Holmes considerably, and he gave the constable his half-sovereign with disdain.

"The blundering fool!" Holmes complained bitterly after we had left the constable's lodgings and returned to our cab. "Just to think of his having such an incomparable bit of good luck, and not taking advantage of it."

I asked why the murderer should risk coming back to the house after leaving it.

"The ring, man, the ring: that was what he came back for. If we have no other way of catching him, we can always bait our line with the ring. I shall have him, Doctor--I'll lay you two to one that I have him." He chuckled happily and touched my arm. "I must thank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you, and so missed the finest study I ever came across: a study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon. There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it."

I smiled at his metaphor, for he did seem to like an inspired turn of phrase. Art and literature could not be so foreign to his nature as I had originally thought.

As we rode home to Baker Street for our lunch, Holmes spoke again of the concert with Norman Neruda, and in his anticipation, he hummed a melody of Chopin's that he had once heard her play.

I would have gone with Holmes to the concert, but I was exhausted after the morning's exertions (as well as last night's) and thought I would take a nap on the sofa. So after he left, I lay down and tried to sleep, but it was useless. I have recorded my thoughts on the morning in hopes that it will relax me, but I find that my mind strays stubbornly to the awful image of the distorted, baboon-like countenance of the murdered man. Enoch J. Drebber, however he was murdered, gives me the impression of being a sinister, fearsome, and malignant man, whom I am glad I never came across in life.

My headache is returning. I will try once more to sleep.


	6. The Incident of the Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the death of the dog, but this was in the original _Study in Scarlet_ mystery. Meanwhile, Watson formally meets the Irregulars and "Mrs. Sawyer" drops in.

This afternoon, our landlady Mrs. Hudson begged me to come see her ailing terrier downstairs. I thought she had mistaken me for a veterinary surgeon, but she already knew her little dog was doomed, and her only request was that I spare the unfortunate beast its continued suffering. Poor creature! I could not bring myself to do the deed, so I said that I had not the proper drugs to put the dog down.

"Surely Mr. Holmes has something?"

"Well, I know he has some poisons in his lab, but I believe those might produce a violently painful or lingering death. Wait until he comes home, and I shall consult with him about what exactly he has, and if there is nothing of use, I shall look up a veterinary surgeon to do the thing for you."

"Soon?" she pled, obviously feeling badly about having left the matter so long already.

"Yes, soon." I headed guiltily upstairs again, assuring myself that the matter was best left in the hands of an experienced professional. In the meantime I glanced through my old medical bag to see what drugs I had. How much would it take to kill the suffering terrier? What would merely paralyse him or produce a deceptive coma? Would not my hand slip? Indeed, it must be a professional.

I waited for Holmes, but he was very late in returning--so late that I knew that the concert could not have detained him all the time. Dinner was on the table before he appeared.

When Holmes joined me, he spoke rather fancifully about Darwin and music, and I was surprised by the broadness of his ideas.

"One's ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature," he said sententiously. Having filled his plate with food, he finally glanced up at me and observed my exhausted state. "What's the matter? You're not looking quite yourself." Ever perceptive, he answered his own question. "This Brixton Road affair has upset you."

I nodded wearily. "To tell the truth, it has. I ought to be more case-hardened after my Afghan experiences. I saw my own comrades hacked to pieces at Maiwand without losing my nerve."

"I can understand. There is a mystery about this which stimulates the imagination; where there is no imagination there is no horror."

I was glad that Holmes had returned, for even if his words were not as tender and comforting as another man's might be, his mere presence was a great solace after my long afternoon. "I can imagine the poor dog's suffering," I said, remembering Mrs. Hudson's terrier. I briefly related to him the landlady's request.

"I see. It is just as well that you did not do it, Watson. I will go out with you later to find a vet for the beast. I suppose you and I should split the cost between us, as a courtesy to Mrs. Hudson. She will likely take it hard, even knowing that it is for the best; women are emotional that way."

I found him cold. Men are emotional that way too. I remembered my attachment to my own dog in my youth. We were called a couple of bull-pups, our temperaments were so alike.

Holmes took no notice of me, for his eyes had been fixed on the _Times_. "Have you seen the evening paper?"

"No."

"It gives a fairly good account of the Lauriston Gardens affair. It does not mention the fact that when the man was raised up a woman's wedding ring fell upon the floor. It is just as well it does not."

"Why?"

"Look at this advertisement. I had one sent to every paper this morning immediately after the affair."

It was the first announcement in the "Found" column, and it ran, "In the Brixton Road, this morning, a plain gold wedding ring, found in the roadway between the White Hart Tavern and Holland Grove. Apply Dr. Watson, 221B, Baker Street, between eight and nine this evening."

He smiled. "Excuse my using your name. If I used my own, some of these dunderheads would recognise it, and want to meddle in the affair."

I did not mind it, but I protested that I had no ring.

He handed me one out of his pocket. "This will do very well. It is almost a facsimile."

Indeed it was. Part of his afternoon must have been spent getting this ring. I slipped it into my own pocket. "And who do you expect will answer this advertisement?"

"Why, the man in the brown coat--our florid friend with the square toes. If he does not come himself, he will send an accomplice."

"Would he not consider it as too dangerous?"

"Not at all. If my view of the case is correct, and I have every reason to believe that it is, this man would rather risk anything than lose the ring." Holmes did not explain how he knew that, but he insisted on the likelihood that, having tried to retrieve the ring once, Square-toes would try again, on the off chance that he had lost the ring in the road, rather than within the empty house. "He would come. He will come. You shall see him within an hour."

"And then?"

"Oh, you can leave me to deal with him then. Have you any arms?"

"I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges."

"You had better clean it and load it. He will be a desperate man; and though I shall take him unawares, it is as well to be ready for anything."

I went to my bedroom to do as he suggested, wondering with trepidation why Holmes chose to take such a serious risk, rather than contact Gregson or Lestrade for some help. A man over six feet tall and in the prime of life would be hard to tackle, as I was still suffering from weakness and stiffness due to my war wound. I did remember that Holmes had demonstrated a certain wiry strength in our battles, hostile and sexual, but I remained worried.

When I returned to the sitting-room with my pistol, the table had been cleared, and Holmes was scraping upon his violin.

"The plot thickens," he remarked as I entered; "I have just had an answer to my American telegram. My view of the case is the correct one."

"And that is--?"

"My fiddle would be the better for new strings," he teased me. Holmes put aside his violin and lit his pipe, completely calm. "Put your pistol in your pocket. When the fellow comes, speak to him in an ordinary way, then leave the rest to me. Don't frighten him by looking at him too hard."

"It is eight o'clock now."

"Yes. He will probably be here in a few minutes. Open the door slightly. That will do. Now put the key on the inside. Thank you!"

I sighed and sat down beside him to wait. He endeavoured to distract me from my anxiety by talking about an old legal book he had bought the other day, printed in 1642. It was an odd, whimsical choice for his shelves, and perhaps an indication that his library would be expanding in new directions.

As Holmes spoke there came a sharp ring at the bell. He rose softly and moved his chair in the direction of the door. We heard the servant pass along the hall, and the sharp click of the latch as she opened it.

"Does Dr. Watson live here?" asked a clear but rather harsh voice. After a moment, the visitor began to ascend the stairs with an uncertain and shuffling gait. It surprised us to hear it. Had Square-toes received grievous injury in the struggle with Enoch J. Drebber?

There finally came a feeble tap at our door.

"Come in," I cried.

Instead of the man of violence whom we expected, a very old and wrinkled woman hobbled into the apartment. I glanced at my companion, and his face had assumed such a disconsolate expression that it was all I could do to keep my countenance.

The old crone drew out an evening paper, and pointed at our advertisement. She told us in a rambling, chatty way that the gold wedding ring belonged to her daughter Sally, who had not been married long and who feared what her husband would think if he found her without her ring.

I interrupted the woman's perambulating speech by removing the gold band from my pocket. "Is that her ring?"

"The Lord be thanked! Sally will be a glad woman this night. That's the ring."

I thereupon took note of the old woman's name and address, while Holmes disputed her story that Sally had lost the ring while going to a circus last night. "The Brixton Road does not lie between any circus and Houndsditch."

She fixed him with a keen look, and responded, "The gentleman asked me for _my_ address. Sally lives in lodgings at 3, Mayfield Place, Peckham."

I finally gave Mrs. Sawyer the ring, and she took it with many mumbled blessings and protestations of gratitude. Then she rose and shuffled off down the stairs.

Holmes sprang up at once and rushed into his room, returning in a few seconds enveloped in an ulster and a cravat. "I'll follow her," he said, hurriedly, "she must be an accomplice, and will lead me to him. Wait up for me."

It was close upon nine when he set out; it is now well past eleven. I worry that some terrible evil has befallen him at the hands of the murderous Square-toes. Holmes should not have gone out unarmed and alone. What use is my pistol sitting here at home with me? What shall I do if he is not back by morning?

* * *

Nearly midnight, Holmes returned. I met him at the sitting-room door, nearly kissed him. He saw it in my eyes and stared back for a moment, saying nothing. Then shutting the door behind him, he caught me close in his arms and kissed my cheek with a smile. "Poor dear Watson," he whispered, "waiting up so long, when he hadn't any sleep at all today."

How I loved his touch.

He soon pulled away from me and sat me down on the sofa with him.

"Where were you?"

"Where wasn't I? Wandering around trying to find some new thread. Cursing myself for my stupidity. Hating to come home empty-handed."

"But what happened?"

"Our florid friend was too smart, and his accomplice too. So much for the brains of Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" He shook his head. "I wouldn't have the Scotland Yarders know it for the world; I have chaffed them so much that they would never have let me hear the end of it."

Then Holmes sighed and recounted his experiences shadowing Mrs. Sawyer. She had after a while hailed a cab and ordered it to the address she had given in Houndsditch, so Holmes had surreptitiously perched himself on the back of the cab and rode the whole way without a stop. He hopped off the cab a little early and waited for the passenger to alight. At that point the driver jumped down for his fare, only to find his cab empty.

Holmes explained that the supposed old woman must have been an active young man in disguise, who had noticed Holmes's pursuit and thus used the cab to give him the slip. Because of this skilled accomplice, we were no nearer to finding the murderer than we were before.

I wished to stay awhile and commiserate with Holmes over his setback, but he looked at my tired eyes and insisted that I go to bed. "Come with me," I said unthinkingly.

He glanced at me sharply, then shook his head. "No, Watson."

I finally obeyed him, going to my room and leaving him seated in front of the smouldering fire. I can still hear the low melancholy wailings of his violin now, and I hope desperately that he is not regretting moving in with me.

* * *

Holmes has not mentioned last night at all. Since breakfast I have tried carefully to not show that I dreamed of him last night, holding me again, kissing me in a far less chaste way. It helped that he kept his eyes squarely focused on the many newspapers he had ordered this morning. I was so nervous that I at first forgot all about Mrs. Hudson's dog.

We read the accounts of the "Brixton Mystery" as it was dubbed in the _Times_, the _Daily Telegraph_, the _Standard_, and the _Daily News_, among others. Holmes was amused by the notices and asked me to make clippings.

"I told you that, whatever happened, Lestrade and Gregson would be sure to score."

"That depends on how it turns out."

He chuckled. "Oh, bless you, it doesn't matter in the least. If the man is caught, it will be _on account_ of their exertions; if he escapes, it will be _in spite_ of their exertions. It's heads I win and tails you lose. Whatever they do, they will have followers. _Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire_."

I could not help but smile. Holmes had read poetry; more, he could speak it very well. Before I could reply, there came a tremendous pattering of many steps in the hall and on the stairs, accompanied by audible expressions of disgust upon the part of our landlady.

"What on earth is this?" I cried.

Holmes answered, "It's the Baker Street division of the detective police force."

Into the room rushed half a dozen of the dirtiest and most ragged street urchins that ever I clapped eyes on, and I recognised two of them from the day that Holmes first moved in.

"'Tention!" cried Holmes, in a sharp tone, and the six dirty little scoundrels stood in a line like so many disreputable statuettes. "In future you shall send up Wiggins alone to report, and the rest of you must wait in the street. Have you found it, Wiggins?"

"No, sir, we hain't," answered one of the youths I had seen before.

"I hardly expected you would," he sighed. "You must keep on until you do. Here are your wages." He handed each of them a shilling. "Now, off you go, and come back with a better report next time."

He waved his hand, and they scampered away downstairs like so many rats, and we heard their shrill voices next moment in the street.

"There's more work to be got out of one of those little beggars than out of a dozen of the force," Holmes remarked. "The mere sight of an official-looking person seals men's lips. These youngsters, however, go everywhere and hear everything. They are as sharp as needles, too; all they want is organisation."

"Which you give in the form of an army of sorts? Is it on this Brixton case that you are employing them?" I asked hopefully.

It was, and he referred vaguely to some point that he needed to ascertain. Was he no longer confiding in me about his case? I would have questioned him further had he not turned and pointed out Gregson coming towards our street door, bringing fresh news for us.

Gregson violently rang the bell and rapidly came up our stairs three at a time, bursting into our sitting-room. "My dear fellow," he cried, wringing Holmes's unresponsive hand, "congratulate me! I have made the whole thing clear as day."

"Do you mean that you are on the right track?" Holmes looked a shade anxious.

"The right track! Why, sir, we have the man under lock and key."

"And his name is?"

"Arthur Charpentier, sub-lieutenant in Her Majesty's navy."

Holmes gave a sigh of relief and relaxed into a smile. He offered Gregson a seat and a cigar, asking for an account of how the man was caught. Holmes even poured a whisky and water for the detective.

Gregson half reclined in the chair, and, gloating that he alone had efficiently solved the murder while Lestrade had gone off after Joseph Stangerson, he related all that he had done since yesterday morning. First he had traced Enoch J. Drebber's hat to its maker, who had been able to provide Drebber's London address, a boarding house belonging to Madame Charpentier. Next he called upon Madame Charpentier, who at first attempted to protect her son Arthur from suspicion, only to have her daughter Alice insist that no good could come of falsehood.

Thereupon Gregson recorded Madame Charpentier's reluctant confession, and he read out her exact statement to us from the shorthand in his notebook. Drebber had been a drunken, brutish, ill-mannered boarder, only tolerated for the fourteen pounds a week he paid, and after he had the nerve on one occasion to embrace the lady's daughter Alice, he had been given notice to leave the house. However, on the night that he and his secretary Stangerson were supposed to depart on the Liverpool express from Euston Station, Drebber had unexpectedly returned alone. He forced his way into the house and endeavoured to get Alice to elope with him. The poor girl had shrunk away from him in fright, and the mother's scream had brought the son Arthur into the room.

Arthur instantly came to his sister's aid and chased away Drebber with a heavy stick. Remarking that he would follow after Drebber to make sure that he had left for good, Arthur took his hat and coat and started off down the street. He did not return home until four or five hours later, as far as Mrs. Charpentier could tell; she had already gone to her bed.

"What was he doing during that time?" Gregson had asked.

"I do not know," she had answered, turning white to her very lips.

After hearing such a bleak, convincing case against Arthur Charpentier, Gregson of course quickly located the sub-lieutenant and arrested him. The young navy man was not at all surprised to be arrested, having no illusions about how suspicious things looked against him; he still had his heavy stick with him, which was a stout oak cudgel. Gregson believed that a blow to Drebber's stomach from such a weapon might have easily killed him without leaving any mark upon his body.

"I flatter myself that I have managed it rather neatly," Gregson spoke with pompous delight. "The young man volunteered a statement, in which he said that after following Drebber some time, the latter perceived him, and took a cab in order to get away from him. On his way home he met an old shipmate, and took a long walk with him. On being asked where this old shipmate lived, he was unable to give any satisfactory reply. I think the whole case fits together uncommonly well. What amuses me is to think of Lestrade, who had started off upon the wrong scent. I am afraid he won't make much of it," he sneered.

Just then, Lestrade burst into the room, having ascended the stairs while we were talking. His face was disturbed and troubled, while his clothes were disarranged and untidy. Evidently embarrassed and put out at seeing Gregson, he stood in the centre of the room, fumbling nervously with his hat and uncertain what to do. "This is a most extraordinary case," he said at last--" a most incomprehensible affair."

"Ah, you find it so, Mr. Lestrade!" cried Gregson, triumphantly. "I thought you would come to that conclusion. Have you managed to find the secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson?"

"The secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson," said Lestrade, gravely, "was murdered at Halliday's Private Hotel about six o'clock this morning."

We were dumbfounded, and Gregson sprang out of his chair, upsetting the remainder of his whisky and water.

"Stangerson too!" Holmes muttered. "The plot thickens."

"It was quite thick enough before," grumbled Lestrade, taking a chair. "I seem to have dropped into a sort of council of war."

"Are you--are you sure of this piece of intelligence?" stammered Gregson.

"I have just come from his room," said Lestrade. "I was the first to discover what had occurred."

Holmes asked Lestrade to detail all that he had done since yesterday morning at Lauriston Gardens, and he did so.

Lestrade had been of the opinion that Stangerson was concerned in the death of Drebber, so he set out to discover what had become of the secretary. They had been seen together at Euston Station about half-past eight on the evening of the 3rd, and at two in the morning Drebber had been found in the Brixton Road, which made it imperative to find out what had become of Stangerson in all that time.

Therefore Lestrade had telegraphed to Liverpool, giving a description of Stangerson, and warning them to keep a watch upon the American boats. He then set to work calling upon all the hotels and lodging-houses in the vicinity of Euston. "You see, I argued that if Drebber and his companion had become separated, the natural course for the latter would be to put up somewhere in the vicinity for the night, and then to hang about the station again next morning."

Lestrade spent the whole of yesterday evening in making his inquiries, entirely without avail. "This morning I began very early, and at eight o'clock I reached Halliday's Private Hotel, in Little George Street. On my inquiry as to whether a Mr. Stangerson was living there, they at once answered me in the affirmative."

Stangerson, they said, had been waiting at the hotel for a certain gentleman for two days. Hoping to catch the fellow unawares, Lestrade immediately went up to Stangerson's room, for they said he was still in bed at this hour. As the boots showed Lestrade to the door, they soon perceived to their shock a little red ribbon of blood curling from underneath the door and meandering into the passage. The door was locked on the inside, but they put their shoulders to it and knocked it in, finding the window open and beside the window, all huddled up, the body of a man in his nightdress. He had been dead for some time, stabbed on his left side into his heart, and the boots recognised him at once as Joseph Stangerson.

"What do you suppose was above the murdered man?" Lestrade asked.

Holmes answered, "The word RACHE, written in letters of blood."

"That was it," said Lestrade, in an awestruck voice; and we were all silent for a while.

Then Lestrade continued his remarkable tale. "The man was seen. A milk boy, passing on his way to the dairy, happened to walk down the lane which leads from the mews at the back of the hotel. He noticed that a ladder, which usually lay there, was raised against one of the windows of the second floor, which was wide open. After passing, he looked back and saw a man descend the ladder. He came down so quietly and openly that the boy imagined him to be some carpenter or joiner at work in the hotel."

I wondered at the arrogance and coolness of the assassin, to let himself be seen in broad daylight. As I listened to the description of the man that Lestrade had got from the milk boy, I noticed that it tallied almost exactly with Holmes's description of Square-toes.

Holmes asked gravely, "Did you find nothing in the room which could furnish a clue to the murderer?"

"Nothing." Lestrade told us that Stangerson's pockets had contained Drebber's purse, filled with eighty-odd pounds, and one unsigned telegram dated from Cleveland about a month ago, consisting of the words, "J. H. is in Europe."

"And there was nothing else?" Holmes asked.

"Nothing of any importance. The man's novel, with which he had read himself to sleep, was lying upon the bed, and his pipe was on a chair beside him. There was a glass of water on the table, and on the window-sill a small chip ointment box containing a couple of pills."

At this, Holmes sprang from his chair with an exclamation of delight. "The last link! My case is complete."

We stared at him in amazement, and he continued exultantly, declaring that he had all the threads in his hands and now knew with certainty what had happened. The Yard detectives were understandably sceptical, and Holmes replied, "I will give you a proof of my knowledge. Could you lay your hand upon those pills?"

Lestrade produced a small white box, remarking that he had only picked it up by chance along with the purse and the telegram. He attached no importance to the pills.

"Give them here," said Holmes impatiently, and showed the pills to me. "Now, Doctor, are those ordinary pills?"

They certainly were not. They were of a pearly grey colour, small, round, and almost transparent against the light. I remarked that they were probably soluble in water.

"Precisely so." Then without explanation, Holmes asked me to step downstairs and fetch Mrs. Hudson's poor little devil of a terrier, mentioning its condition for the benefit of the two Yard detectives. Up until that moment I had forgotten about the suffering animal, and thought that Holmes had too.

I did not understand Holmes's request, but obeyed him and returned with the old dog in my arms. Gregson and Lestrade showed sympathy for its laboured breathing and glazing eye, but remained puzzled while I placed it upon a cushion on the rug.

Holmes appeared unaffected by the sight of the ailing dog and simply embarked on his demonstration. He cut one of the pills in half with his penknife, returning one half to the box "for future purposes" and dissolving the other half in a teaspoonful of water, in a wineglass.

Lestrade impatiently interrupted, not seeing what this had to do with the murder of Stangerson.

"Patience, my friend, patience!" He next added a little milk into the mixture and poured it out into a saucer that he set before the dog. Ill as it was, the terrier licked the saucer dry. Holmes watched it earnestly, and we all sat in silence waiting for something to happen.

But minute after minute passed without result, and the dog continued to lie stretched upon the cushion, breathing in its laboured way. Holmes took out his watch, growing more chagrined and disappointed as time passed. By the time he gnawed his lip and drummed his fingers upon the table, the two detectives were derisively smiling at him.

"It can't be a coincidence," Holmes cried, springing from his chair and pacing wildly. "The very pills which I suspected in the case of Drebber are actually found after the death of Stangerson. And yet they are inert. What can it mean? Surely my whole chain of reasoning cannot have been false. It is impossible! And yet this wretched dog is none the worse." Finally Holmes's desperation ended as an idea came to him, and he shouted, "I have it!" just like old Archimedes and his bathtub cry of "Eureka!"

Holmes rushed back to the box, cut the other pill in two, and repeated the same procedure on half of it that he had performed before. This time when he presented the mixture to the terrier, the unfortunate creature's tongue seemed hardly to have been moistened in it before it gave a convulsive shiver in every limb, and lay as rigid and lifeless as if it had been struck by lightning.

Holmes expressed his relief and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, explaining that of the two pills in the box, one was deadly poison while the other was entirely harmless.

I verified that the dog was dead, and knew that I would soon be able to bring our landlady bittersweet news. For the moment, though, I remained in the room consumed with curiosity about the mystery. The dog's convulsive posture reminded me of the terrible contortions of Enoch J. Drebber's body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Watson mentions a "bull-pup" in the story, and Sherlockians debate whether Watson actually meant a dog, or if he was using army slang for a bad temper. In this novel, I cheat and have "bull pup" mean both Watson's temper and his childhood dog.  
2\. 'Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire.'  
This quotation from Nicholas Boileau-Despreaux's L'Art Poetique means, "A fool can always find a bigger fool to admire him."


	7. The Capture of Square-Toes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wiggins helps, and Watson shows off his medical skills.

Unfortunately, Holmes explained nothing further then, instead taking the time to lecture Gregson and Lestrade about recognising an important clue and using the strange and ostensibly complicating aspects of a case to unravel the mystery faster.

Gregson spoke up first, complaining that we needed more than mere theory and preaching at the moment. "You have thrown out hints here, and hints there, and seem to know more than we do, but the time has come when we have the right to ask you straight. Can you name the man who did it?"

Lestrade agreed. "Surely you will not withhold it any longer."

Lest Holmes prove petulant against the two Yard detectives, I also pressed him. "Any delay in arresting the assassin might give him time to perpetrate some fresh atrocity."

Holmes glanced at me irresolutely. He paced up and down the room with his head sunk on his chest and his brows drawn down, lost in thought.

"There will be no more murders," he said at last, stopping abruptly and facing us. "You can put that consideration out of the question."

I wondered how he could possibly be certain of that fact.

Holmes admitted that he did know the name of the assassin but that he was not yet able to lay his hands upon him. He did expect to do so very soon, however, and until then, Holmes considered the matter too delicate to entrust to the police force. "As long as this man has no idea that anyone can have a clue there is some chance of securing him; but if he had the slightest suspicion, he would change his name, and vanish in an instant among the four million inhabitants of this great city."

I was about to ask Holmes whether the assassin might not already suspect, considering that he sent his ally to retrieve the ring last night, but then I remembered Holmes's chagrin at having been fooled by the "old woman" and so I refrained from mentioning it in front of Gregson and Lestrade.

"If I fail," Holmes said, "I shall, of course, incur all the blame due to this omission; but that I am prepared for. At present I am ready to promise that the instant that I can communicate with you without endangering my own combinations, I shall do so."

Gregson and Lestrade seemed far from satisfied by this assurance; rather, they seemed insulted by Holmes judging the murderer and his ally to be "more than a match for the official force." Gregson had flushed up to the roots of his flaxen hair, while Lestrade's beady eyes glistened with resentment.

To prevent them from talking, I rose from my chair and tried to have a word with Holmes privately, drawing him towards his chemical laboratory in the corner. Holmes resisted me, as though he feared I were taking him into a bedroom to make advances upon his person. That was not my intention of course, and I whispered urgently, "No, Holmes, about 'Mrs. Sawyer,' the ally--"

We were still in the middle of the room, making no progress, and attracting the increasing curiosity of the two detectives, when there came a tap at the door. I turned and saw young Wiggins, the oldest of the army of street urchins, enter the room.

Holmes broke from my grasp and went to the boy.

"Please, sir," Wiggins said, touching his forelock, "I have the cab downstairs."

"Good boy." Holmes went behind his desk and took a pair of steel handcuffs from a drawer. "Why don't you introduce this pattern at Scotland Yard?" he said blandly to the officials. "See how beautifully the spring works. They fasten in an instant."

"The old pattern is good enough," Lestrade snapped impatiently, "if we can only find the man to put them on."

"Very good, very good," said Holmes, smiling. "The cabman may as well help me with my boxes. Just ask him to step up, Wiggins."

The scruffy boy had noticed the deceased dog upon the cushion and had bent down to peer at it. He looked up at Holmes's command.

"Wiggins," I interposed, "would you please carry Mrs. Hudson's dog down to her? Tell her that Mr. Holmes has put the poor thing out of its misery."

"Oh. It was sick, Doctor?"

"Yes." I wrapped the stiff body carefully in a small rug to make the bundle a little less disturbing. "She'll probably want to have it buried somewhere, but take it down to her sitting-room and let her say good-bye to it first."

"Yes, sir," Wiggins gravely took the bundle in his arms.

Holmes cleared his throat, his hands upon his hips in an irritated fashion. He scowled at me. "Wiggins, before you give the creature to Mrs. Hudson, just pop your head out the door and send the cabman up for my boxes. I'm in a hurry."

"Yes, sir." The boy carried his bundle down the stairs.

"Boxes?" I looked at Holmes with bewilderment.

There had been a portmanteau behind his desk, and Holmes pulled this out, beginning to fasten the strap. He acted as though he were about to set out on a journey, without telling me the least about it. I feared suddenly that he meant to move out because of last night, and I could not say anything with Gregson and Lestrade still in the room.

"Remind me, Holmes, how long will you be gone?" I asked, feigning knowledge of his departure. Maybe it was only temporary; maybe he would tell me where he was going.

Holmes did not answer me, and the suspicious glare of the Yard men made me think they would now ask me for an explanation.

The cabman arrived then, while Holmes still knelt over his portmanteau. "Just give me a help with this buckle, cabman," he said, never turning his head.

The fellow came forward with a somewhat sullen, defiant air, and put down his hands to assist. At that instant Holmes snapped his metal handcuffs onto the man's wrists and sprang to his feet again, looking triumphant.

"Gentleman, let me introduce you to Mr. Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Enoch Drebber and Joseph Stangerson."

We and the cabman were as stunned as statues for a moment, taking in what had just occurred. Then Holmes's prisoner turned savage, wrenching himself free from Holmes's grasp and hurling himself irrationally through the window. Before he crashed completely through the woodwork and glass, Gregson, Lestrade, and Holmes caught hold of him and dragged him back into the room. I joined the raging conflict, but the handcuffed criminal appeared to have the convulsive strength of a man in an epileptic fit. His face and hands were terribly mangled by the glass he had broken through, but he shook us off again and again.

Finally, Lestrade succeeded in getting his hand inside the man's neckcloth, and half-strangled him into giving up the struggle. Still we did not feel secure until we pinioned his feet. That done, we rose to our feet breathless and panting.

A horrified cry from the doorway drew our attention to Mrs. Hudson, who had come upstairs and entered at the sounds of struggle. Young Wiggins was by her side, speechless.

In surveying the damage that we had done--the broken window, the overturned furniture, and the shattered bits of china--I realised that the landlady's reaction was mild.

Holmes explained quietly, "I am sorry, Mrs. Hudson. I'm afraid there's been some violence. We shall clean this up and pay for the damage, of course."

"Yes, sir," she said, a little dazed. "But what happened here? Who are these men?"

"You remember Mr. Lestrade, of course? This is his colleague at Scotland Yard, Mr. Gregson, and this gentleman on the floor is a criminal they have just caught. We shall take him down to the police-station right away and endanger your household no further."

"I see." Mrs. Hudson swallowed, her eyes still wide. "Thank you."

"Wiggins, would you?"

"Blimey," the boy finally let out in a whisper.

"Wiggins," Holmes spoke sharply.

"Yes, sir?"

"Would you take Mrs. Hudson downstairs, please?"

"Yes, sir." The boy tugged at the landlady's skirts, and the two of them turned and departed back down the stairs.

Holmes turned to us with an air of decision now, rubbing his hands together. "Now, gentlemen, we have reached the end of our little mystery, and you are welcome to put any questions to me along the way. We have his cab. It will serve to take him to Scotland Yard. Come, lift him."

"Wait, Holmes," I interrupted. "We cannot just take him out into the street like this. He's mangled and bleeding; I must treat him and clean him up before we go. In fact, all of us could do with a little tending to, to make sure that none of us has been injured seriously."

"I agree, Doctor," said Gregson, rubbing his bruised arm. It was possibly the first time he had noticed and addressed me.

Holmes protested, "I hardly think, Watson, that you shall be able to treat such a fierce, violent man, after all his determined struggles. You only risk further injury and our prisoner breaking free from us again."

"You had better ask me about that," said our rough-voiced prisoner from where he lay on the floor. His expression, such as it was under all that blood and glass, had turned from savage to rather amused. "I know I seem like an animal to you just now, a mad dog maybe, but I am a civilised man. If it's a doctor helping me, I shall respect him and do him no harm. If you don't trust me, of course, you can always keep a gun trained on me."

Holmes raised an eyebrow at the change in our prisoner's demeanour. "I believe I will," he said. "Watson, where did you leave your revolver last?" When he had retrieved my pistol and checked that it was loaded, he returned from my desk and perched himself on a chair that allowed him an easy shot, should he need to fire. "Very well, Watson, go get your medical bag and begin administering to our prisoner. Gregson and Lestrade will have to sit and catch their breaths for now."

I fetched my black bag from my bedroom. "Holmes, do you have any more iodoform?" I said as I came back.

"Yes, in my lab, near the plaster." He never shifted his eyes from Hope.

I took the bottle of iodoform and then knelt down in front of the reclining prisoner. The once-savage man remained quiet and still while I treated his hands and face, even as I warned him that the iodoform would sting.

"I know, Doc." He winced. "I've some experience with pharmacy."

I cleaned his wounds, carefully tweezed out shards of glass, and then bandaged him pretty thoroughly. What struck me the most about our prisoner were his eyes, staring out of his dark, sunburned face in a strangely calm and docile way, as if he saw the futility in struggling anymore against his captors. "Doctor," he whispered pensively, "Dr. Watson, you are, with the ring yesterday. I should have known--" he broke off and laughed quietly to himself.

When I finished my work, I rose to my feet and tossed my dirty rags into the bin.

"Good, Watson," Holmes said, "now feel free to check on Gregson and Lestrade over there. I'll watch Hope."

Moving out of view of Jefferson Hope, I proceeded to look over the two Yard men and tend to their minor scrapes and bruises. Lestrade smiled at me as I treated him, evidently deciding that he knew now why Holmes had brought me along in the first place. "Splendid idea," he said, shaking my hand as if to welcome me. "You'll see much use in this business, if Mr. Holmes hasn't told you."

Next I turned back to Holmes in the chair. "Now let me see you."

"I'm all right, Watson. Lestrade, come take over for me. Gregson can help if he likes." He passed my pistol onto his replacement and then joined me by his desk, where I was ready with fresh bandages and iodoform. "No, stop inspecting me, Watson. Let me have a look at you. Your health is delicate since Afghanistan, remember?"

I was somewhat embarrassed, worried that Gregson or Lestrade might turn and catch Holmes running his hands over me as if he were my surgeon. I flushed when his hand brushed my thigh, and he whispered faintly, "You did the same to them; it is nothing." He patched up a cut upon my brow and then withdrew to fix his own hurts, leaving me to recover my composure.

Thus he gave me no chance to examine him, and I simply had to trust that he had found everything, and had sufficient medical knowledge to deal with it.

Holmes took the revolver back from Lestrade and slipped it into his pocket, and together the three detectives gazed down upon their reclining prisoner. I returned to their side.

Jefferson Hope remained in an affable mood, smiling and remarking to Holmes, "I guess you're going to take me to the police-station now. My cab's at the door. If you'll loose my legs I'll walk down to it. I'm not so light to lift as I used to be."

Gregson and Lestrade exchanged glances at the boldness of his proposition, but Holmes, perhaps having observed the strange serenity in Hope's eyes, took him at his word and loosened the towel which we had bound round his ankles. Hope rose and stretched his legs, and I noticed as I saw him at his full height that he was a most powerfully built man.

Our prisoner eyed Holmes with undisguised admiration. "If there's a vacant place for a chief of the police, I reckon you are the man for it. The way you kept on my trail was a caution."

Holmes took the compliment in stride, taking Hope by the elbow of his sleeve and beckoning to the official detectives. "You had better come with me."

Lestrade shook off his amazement and hurried to the door. "I can drive you."

"Good! and Gregson can come inside with me. You too, Doctor. You have taken an interest in the case, and may as well stick with us."

We all descended together in an oddly quiet procession, and Hope made no attempt at escape, stepping calmly into the cab with us while Lestrade mounted the box and drove us to Scotland Yard.

When we arrived, a police inspector took us into a small chamber and noted down the names of our prisoner and the men he was accused of murdering. This anti-climax felt dull and mechanical, so that I wondered why I had come. The unemotional official informed us that Jefferson Hope would be put before the magistrates within the week, and then asked if Hope had anything to say.

Our prisoner was quite eager to speak, despite the warning that it would be used against him in his trial. He said that he might never be tried, and turned his dark eyes to me. "Doctor, you'll know this."

"Know what?" I asked, astonished.

"Put your hand here," he said, with a smile, motioning with his manacled wrists towards his chest.

I did so, and realised his meaning as I detected the extraordinary throbbing and commotion going on inside him. "Why, you have an aortic aneurism!"

He nodded and said he had seen a doctor last week who told him that it was bound to burst before many days passed. He had done his life's work now and no longer cared when he died, but he wished to leave behind some explanation of what he had done, so that he would not be remembered as a common cutthroat.

After some discussion between the inspector and the two detectives, they agreed to take down Hope's statement, and so he began his remarkable narrative.

He leaned back in his chair and recounted in a calm and methodical manner how he had hunted Drebber and Stangerson for twenty years because he blamed them for causing the deaths of a girl and her father. Hope had planned his vengeance and dogged them year after year, in America and Europe, taking many odd jobs along the way in order to keep up with the rich men's travels. He had even prepared in advance two sets of identical-looking pills, one poison and one harmless in each box.

Hope had never been able to get at either Drebber or Stangerson alone, for they always took precautions against their pursuer. In London he had found employment as a cab driver and used this method to stalk the two men for two weeks. On the night of the first murder Hope had seen Drebber foolishly return to the boarding house alone and had watched Arthur Charpentier kick him out into the street. Drebber had hailed Hope's cab to escape the young man and had given orders to drive to Halliday's Private Hotel, where Stangerson was awaiting him.

Hope seized the opportunity, however, to drive the intoxicated Drebber to an empty house that he had access to in Lauriston Gardens. Hope had walked his disoriented victim inside and had lit the candle, making sure that Drebber recognised him as took out the wedding ring and berated Drebber for the death of Lucy Ferrier. Then Hope had offered the choice between the pills, and Drebber took the poison one, dying instantly. Hope's nose had been bleeding from his high emotion, so he wrote the word RACHE on the wall as a blind before leaving the house. When he later realised that he had lost Lucy's ring, he attempted to come back to the house, but the police had already arrived on the scene by then, and he had to play drunk to escape their suspicion.

With Stangerson, Hope drove to his hotel and watched it for a day, but as Stangerson did not ever leave, Hope found out the man's room and used a ladder to get to its window. He broke in early in the morning and offered Stangerson the same choice of pills, but the secretary chose to fight and Hope stabbed him with his knife. He wrote RACHE above him too, washed his hands, and then descended the ladder.

Having completed his vengeance, Hope had kept working as a cabby, hoping to earn enough for his voyage back to America. These plans were soon ended with his summons to Baker Street by an innocent-looking boy, resulting in his capture. Now Hope no longer cared what became of him and was content.

Holmes tried to press Hope to name his secret ally, but the man only winked and refused to reveal any secrets other than his own. His friend had seen the advertisement and volunteered to fetch the ring, as Hope was watching Stangerson's hotel; the friend had smartly taken precautions against a trap, but had neglected afterward to mention to Hope the address he had gone to, to get the ring.

Although Gregson and Lestrade were puzzled by these last remarks, they were happy to have their man at last, and seemed somewhat pleased to learn that Holmes had failed in a previous attempt to capture the formidable prisoner. Suddenly Gregson remembered that he still had Arthur Charpentier in custody, so he excused himself to see to the innocent man's release.

But the police inspector halted him for a moment to warn us all that our attendance would be required Thursday, when Jefferson Hope would be brought before the magistrates. Then he released Gregson's arm and rang the bell to have the prisoner taken away.

Holmes and I made our way out of the station and took a cab back to Baker Street.

"A shame that he did not reveal his friend," I remarked.

"I suppose it was also wise that I did not reveal to him that the ring his accomplice retrieved was not the real Lucy Ferrier's ring."

"Probably for the best."

"Still, I suppose that we might yet learn the identity of Hope's friend."

"How?"

"Well, Hope said that he had seen a doctor last week about his aneurysm. As Hope is a relative stranger to London, he very likely had help in finding this doctor. Possibly Hope's friend brought him to be treated, and if we could trace the doctor who examined him, we might obtain a name or at least a good description of the accomplice, provided that he was not in disguise again. Another possibility is that Hope's friend is a doctor himself."

"But how could you trace the doctor in either case? There are countless private practices and hospitals throughout the metropolis."

Holmes sighed thoughtfully, "It might take tedious searching by Wiggins and the boys again, plus ourselves at the more upscale practices, which would turn up their noses at the ragged lads. Yet Hope is impoverished and could not afford the bill of any truly exclusive doctor, unless such doctor was motivated to waive his fee. The unfortunate thing is, that if I advertise in the daily newspapers for the doctor, Hope's friend would invariably be tipped off into disappearing."

"He would certainly not fall for another summons to 221B Baker Street."

"No," Holmes agreed.

"What if, while we are slowly combing London for the doctor, Hope's friend already decides to disappear to America or elsewhere?"

"Ah, that is a distinct danger, indeed. I believe, however, that Hope's friend will not flee London until he knows what will become of Hope. We saw already that the accomplice risked his own capture to retrieve the ring for Hope; surely he has loyalty enough to see whether Hope shall be convicted at his trial, or else shall die in his cell? So the man will remain in town for some days at least."

"Yes, but how much of London can you search in a few days' time? Is there no other way to trace the accomplice?"

Holmes shrugged. "Perhaps he will come to observe Hope's trial, and I might be able to deduce his identity in the audience, but there is no guarantee that he will show up."

"And he might be disguised again."

"Indeed, though I'll be damned if he fools me twice!"

"What sort of person would help commit two murders?" I wondered. "Did he feel justified in it, like Hope?"

"Probably."

"And all to avenge deaths from twenty years ago? I don't suppose you know of any criminal cases dating back to 1861 in America?"

He smiled. "I know a great many. More, if we take twenty years as being only an approximate number of years that have passed; it might have taken place shortly before or after that year. Yet the names of the principals--Drebber, Stangerson, Hope, and Ferrier--do not immediately bring any case to my mind. Research would be necessary, and it would help if we could narrow down a particular city at least."

"Cleveland, Ohio?" I ventured.

"Perhaps, though Hope and his targets seem to have roamed all over America, not staying long in any location. But wait a moment--Hope spoke of living among the Salt Lake Mountains, and he told Drebber that he had hunted him from Salt Lake City to St. Petersburg."

"Salt Lake City?"

"Yes, does that locale not sound familiar? Is it not the capital for Mormons? I wonder..."

He was still pondering the matter when our cab came to a stop and we alighted.

"I see that someone has swept up the debris that fell to the pavement from our broken window," Holmes observed.

"It could not be left there for long, with so many passers-by."

"No indeed. Look up there in our window. There are workmen already beginning repairs. I hope they have not disturbed my laboratory." Holmes opened our street door with his latchkey.

"You are lucky that our capture of Jefferson Hope did not knock over your chemicals and start a fire."

We entered and began to hurry up the stairs to our rooms, only to be interrupted by the appearance of young Wiggins, who opened the door of Mrs. Hudson's parlour. His hands and face had been recently washed. "They're here now, ma'am," he called back into the room.

Holmes stopped abruptly on the fifth step. "Wiggins, you're still here?"

Mrs. Hudson came into the hall then. Her eyes were dry now, but she had recently been crying. I hoped it was purely for the dog, and not also for the damage we had done to her sitting-room and furniture.

"I thought I better stay with the ma'am," the boy explained.

"I see. You are dismissed now. Here's for your help this morning." Holmes reached down and paid him.

The boy thanked him but looked to Mrs. Hudson for final dismissal.

She nodded to him. "I'm all right now. Run along, dear."

"Right, ma'am." With a friendly wave, he turned and scampered out the street door.

Our landlady explained the commotion upstairs, "I am sorry, but I've had to send for the workmen already. You gentlemen shall not be able to dine upstairs at present, but you may take luncheon here in my rooms."

Holmes answered graciously, "How kind of you. You have my apologies, Mrs. Hudson. We did not know that the interview with the prisoner would take so long, otherwise we would have assisted in this clean-up. Do let us know the final cost, so that we may cover it."

"I shall, Mr. Holmes. Now if you'll excuse me, I must go in and check upon your luncheon. It should be ready in half an hour."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Iodoform was a common antiseptic for wounds in olden days. It is a tincture of iodine and a sodium or potassium iodide. Holmes also mentions iodoform in "A Scandal in Bohemia," saying that Watson smells of it, and has surely returned to medical practice.  
2\. In _Study in Scarlet_, Hope says that he himself saw the advertisement for the wedding ring, but this part of the story does not quite make sense. If Hope had been suspicious that the ad was a lure, and if his friend "Mrs. Sawyer" had been briefly followed from 221B by Holmes, then why did Hope willingly go to that same risky address when a boy summoned him there? My idea that Hope's ally actually saw the address, but Hope did not, explains why Hope would not have recognised 221B Baker Street, but it sadly does not explain why Holmes thought his plan would work, since he did not know who would see the advertisement and who wouldn't. It was much too lucky a capture.  
In Michael Dibdin's pastiche, _The Last Sherlock Holmes Story_, he handles this difficulty by saying that the capture took place at the cab-yard instead, and that ACD was embellishing the account with the strenuous capture in Baker Street. Not a bad fix, but I went a different way. I like acknowledging that Holmes is capable of making mistakes; he is sometimes fallible and foolish like any human.


	8. The Needle and the Parcel

We thanked her and then continued upstairs to wash up. Our sitting-room was crowded with workmen who were judging what repairs the furniture needed, and others who were measuring the window and boarding up the gaping hole until new glass could be brought. Holmes and I edged by the workers and then parted, I to my room, and Holmes to his laboratory make sure that his chemicals and instruments were safely put away. After I washed and groomed in my bedroom, I sat down a moment to rest after the long morning. Finally I began to worry, and peeked out my bedroom door. Holmes was no longer at his laboratory, so presumably he had also gone to wash up for luncheon.

I ventured out of my room and knocked on his door.

There was a moment of hesitation before Holmes responded. "Come in, Watson."

I did so and found Holmes in his shirtsleeves, standing by his mirror and attaching his cuffs. His other coat and shirt lay on his bed, for they had been torn in his struggle with Hope.

"I am sorry to intrude," I said, shutting the door. "I'm just a little worried, though."

"About what?"

"I would not think of begrudging Mrs. Hudson anything, but how much do you think the repairs are likely to cost? I just want to be certain that we'll have enough between us to pay."

He smiled at me. "Is that all, Watson? Do not worry about that; when I said that we should pay for it, I never meant that we should have to do so alone."

"Then who will pay?"

"My clients, of course. Actually, Watson, you should not have to pay at all, for I know that your pocketbook is still trying to recover from the strains of your hotel stay. Do not give another thought to it."

"Your clients, Holmes?"

"Yes, Gregson and Lestrade. I shall bill them as I always do for my assistance on their case; if not for my solving it and allowing them to have the credit, they would be deprived of prestige, promotions, and pay cheques at Scotland Yard."

"I see." So that was why they tolerated Holmes.

"In fact, Watson, why don't you send them a bill as well for the medical services you performed, for them and for their prisoner?"

"Oh but Holmes, that was my duty--"

"Yes, but someone's got to pay for used bandages, iodoform, and your expertise. I'm sure Gregson and Lestrade will understand. Just think about it; it can be your stepping stone to returning to practice."

I shrugged non-committally and started to leave him to finish dressing, but my eye caught a glimpse of something as he raised his arm again to attach his cuff to his sleeve.

"Holmes!"

"Watson, let go of me."

"But you've missed something here, on your arm."

He kept pulling away and frowning, but I held onto him. "I knew I should have examined you. Here, you've--"

What I thought to be a cut, however, turned out to be a small scar. In fact, I pushed back his whole sleeve and found his forearm littered with such scars. They were evidently the marks of a hypodermic needle.

Holmes cleared his throat with dignity. "There, you see, Watson? No cuts, and these are all old scars, well healed. I do know how to keep away infection."

"But what are you injecting yourself with so often?"

"My medication," he said, vaguely.

"Medication? Are you ill?" I looked at him with concern.

"Sometimes." He pulled his arm out of my grasp, covering it up again. He elaborated cautiously, "You know of my depressions, Watson. You've seen one."

"Yes."

"Well, sometimes Lestrade is not there to bring me a case; sometimes I must find a way to come out of my depressions by myself. That is what my medication is for."

"Oh. What is it? Maybe I can prescribe something--"

"No, no, don't bother. I have sufficient medical knowledge, Watson; I'm taking care of it." He seemed opposed to my questioning him any further, and considered the subject closed. "Now do let me finish, lest I be late for lunch."

So I left his room, and we met later downstairs in our landlady's parlour, where she set a table for us. I thanked her and asked her how she was feeling. She smiled and said not to mind her, she was only thinking of her poor dog again.

"I only miss him, that's all." She sighed heavily. "But it is better this way, I know; he was in too much pain, Doctor." She inquired whether the death had been quick; I said it was instantaneous, and it comforted her. She thanked us both for our help and then withdrew.

Holmes glanced at me oddly.

I asked him what was wrong, but he would not answer at first. We ate in silence until Holmes finally said, "Do you find me cold, Watson?"

"What do you mean?"

"Unsympathetic? Inhuman? I believe you and Wiggins have offered the lady far more comfort than I."

"It is not in your nature, that's all. I am sure that she does not mind."

"But do _you_ mind, Watson?"

"No, you do not express emotions often--"

"I do not feel them, you mean." He folded his hands and stared critically down at them. "I wish to be detached and methodical, Watson, for the sake of my work, so I regulate myself constantly in that regard. Yet perhaps such vigilance makes me inauthentic at inconvenient moments and robs me of a useful tool. I should cultivate the art of convincingly displaying emotion; human nature responds to it, women especially."

I did not know what to say to that, but I certainly felt Holmes's analytical nature in full force at that moment. Was he implying that my sympathy for Mrs. Hudson was false? Was he saying that he could only permit himself artificial emotion, to be used as a tool?

After we dined, I returned upstairs to my room. It is somewhat distracting to write while I can hear the workmen in the other room, but it is important that I write up the morning's events before I forget them. I wonder if the Holmes I knew five years ago is completely gone now, or if the warmth I thought he showed in my arms was only an illusion, a figment of my imagination.

* * *

After the workmen left and we were able to return to our sitting-room, Holmes checked his corner laboratory again. "Watson, I am going to the chemist's," he announced, not turning around to me. "Is your black bag well stocked?"

I got it from where I had left it on my desk, and knew already that it was fairly depleted. "Do you want your iodoform back?"

"No, keep it. What else do you need?"

"Well--"

"Here, let me have a look."

I brought my bag over to him and he efficiently went through it, making a list of what needed replenishing.

"Is this for your wound?" he said, finding the salve that I had been keeping for its sentimental value, as it was getting more and more unlikely that I would be using it again. I took it back from him hurriedly and slipped it into my pocket.

"No, Holmes," I said, clearing my throat; it would be impossible to lie to him.

He finally glanced at me, raising an eyebrow and then smiling very slightly. He said nothing, however, and returned to his cataloguing. When finished, he restored everything to my bag and handed it back to me. "I shall return this afternoon with your supplies."

"Thank you, Holmes." As I deposited the bag on my desk again, I heard Holmes follow after me.

"Watson," he spoke quietly behind me, "I'm afraid that this Brixton case has caused me to neglect an earlier list. Should I take you out again tonight?"

"No, Holmes," I answered, not turning around. "I'm tired."

"Another night perhaps?"

I shook my head. "It wasn't of much use to begin with. I'll find some other way to meet someone."

He leaned near and put his hand upon my shoulder, whispering, "Perhaps you should try Arthur Charpentier."

"Why?" His touch and his low voice made me shiver a little.

"It is not a certainty yet, but a hunch. He met an old shipmate on the way home, and took a long walk with him. When asked where this old shipmate lived, he was unable to give any satisfactory reply. Four or five hours, his mother not knowing where he went."

Finally Holmes let go and departed, leaving me to mull over his words. A young Navy man. How young? I knew I was too old now to pass as an undergraduate anymore in our university towns. I was not sure if I was too old for a fling with a young sailor on leave. With my luck, Holmes's hunch would be wrong, or the sub-lieutenant would not find me attractive, or he would prefer to be with his old shipmate.

I sunk into my chair and felt lonely. What I still ache for, in a frustrating way, is Holmes, but that may be the mere lure of convenience. Am I so lazy that I would pursue a man just because he sleeps under the same roof I do? Just because I've had him once before?

Not wanting to be disturbed by Holmes upon his return, I retired to my bedroom and locked the door. I did not respond when he arrived and called for me repeatedly. Then I heard him unload his parcels and no doubt fill up my black bag, but I cannot be sure whether I imagined him coming to my door and standing there for a time.

I do not think I shall come out for dinner.

* * *

"Watson?" He knocked at my door. "Watson?"

Maybe it was better when he called me Doctor, even in private.

Faced with my continued silence, he said, "If you shall not come to dinner, that is all right; I can tell Mrs. Hudson you are tired. But perhaps you would like to see the parcel that arrived for you?"

I sat up at this, not sure if he was speaking truthfully.

He knocked again. "It will not fit under your door."

I finally rose and opened the door very slightly ajar, but I remained behind the door, well out of his view.

After a pause, he said, "I still have your revolver in my room. Here."

So he handed me a thick parcel, and then went to get my revolver. Meanwhile I stared at the parcel in my hands. Holmes returned and handed me back my revolver.

I closed the door and locked it again, setting my gun down on my dresser.

He remained on the other side. "No return address," he said through the door. "No postmark. Someone rang our bell and disappeared before the maid could see them; it was propped against our door and fell inside when she opened it. Addressed to you by typewriter. Letter 'B' worn down and faint, letter 't' chipped. I would need further samples to identify this machine."

I did not respond to his desperate curiosity about the parcel. I wondered if he had any curiosity left about me, any regard for how I might feel to have him nudge me indiscriminately to this stranger or that stranger, just so that it would take my interest away from him.

"Watson?" he pled, leaning at my door.

At last I tore open the parcel, and could hear the impatience in his breath. I sat down next to my door and started describing my findings to him. "A thick, typewritten document, accompanied by a note, which reads, 'To Dr. Watson and the suspicious gentleman who tried to follow me the other night: I have learned that my friend Mr. Jefferson Hope has been captured by the police. This is a great tragedy, as such a good man ought to die at home in his sick bed, not in a cell at Scotland Yard. If only I had known and stopped him from going on that fool's errand to Baker Street!

"'Sirs, I do not know what your interest in the affair is, but if you have any sense of justice, you will make sure that this history is sent on to the authorities at his trial, where it may mitigate the charges against him. It is an account of the wrongful deaths of John Ferrier and his adopted daughter Lucy, for whose sake Mr. Hope has given up all comfort in his life to see that Drebber and Stangerson do not get away with their crimes! Please show mercy, Doctor!'" The tone of desperation was unmistakable.

Holmes spoke up from the other side. "Is that it? No signature?"

"No," I answered, "not even typewritten."

"Not surprising, given his anonymous method of delivering the parcel." Holmes sounded thoroughly fascinated by this new development. "So the accomplice comes forth, partially. He takes another risk to defend his friend. Does he not know that Hope is bound to die before long, or does he prefer to stand by him, to the very end?"

I said nothing, though Holmes waited several moments for a response. I could hear his breathing and sense his presence right at the door, close to me.

"Hand me the note, please," he said, quite subdued.

I passed it underneath the door to him.

After another pause, he asked, "How many pages in the manuscript?"

"About fifty."

"Bound together?"

"Yes."

"Will you let me see them when you are done reading them?"

"Yes."

I heard him rise and go. So he did not want me for anything other than the case. I put the parcel and its contents aside on my dresser.

* * *

I had fallen fitfully asleep, only to wake and find Holmes sitting on the edge of my bed, his hand upon my brow. I turned around to face him.

"How did you--?"

"I picked your lock." He brushed back the hair from my eyes. "I needed to be sure you were well."

"Or did you wish to get to the parcel?" I sneered.

He shook his head. "Wiggins wants to see you."

"What?"

He shrugged, as puzzled as I. "That boy is growing to have a mind of his own lately. I hardly know how much longer I shall be able to rely on him, but so far his judgement of whom to trust is impeccable."

I sat up at last, but did not take his offered bait for conversation, so he gave up.

"Can you make yourself presentable in five minutes?"

I nodded.

He rose from my bed and went to the door. "Wiggins will be waiting for you in the sitting-room. I shall be in my bedroom playing my violin, as the boy insisted I not eavesdrop."

Holmes then departed and I hurried to cleanse myself of my afternoon and evening of frustrated sulking. The time was half past eight, and I soon heard Holmes take up his violin.

Wiggins stood holding his cap when I appeared. "You all right, Doctor?"

I nodded and asked him to sit, while I did the same. "What is it, Wiggins?"

"I don't mean to disturb you, if you aren't well. Mrs. Hudson says you didn't have no dinner."

"I'm fine. I was just feeling tired. Why did you wish to see me?"

"Well, first of all, do you remember the day that Mr. Holmes moved in?"

"Yes. You and another boy were here."

"Yeah. That were Dennis. All us Irregulars--"

"What?"

"Irregulars. That's what Mr. Holmes calls us, an irregular police force; it's his little joke. All us Irregulars were very surprised to hear that Mr. Holmes had found a bloke to split rooms with him, seeing as he's so known for being an irregular bloke himself. Some people think he's half crazed."

I smiled. "Go on."

"Well that's what me and Dennis were joking about, how long it'd be before Mr. Holmes drove you crazy and you'd throw him out, or else how crazy you'd have to be yourself to stay with him. We wanted a glimpse of you, see what sort of bloke you were."

"Ah."

"Sorry we were rude to you, Doctor."

"That's all right, Wiggins. I believe I was rude to you."

He smiled. "I'm glad you're a nice, steady fella. Maybe you'll make Mr. Holmes more steady too. So far, only us and the regular police can stand him, and sometimes they can't stand him neither."

I nodded. "I know."

"I told the other Irregulars about you, and we thought it were time that we said hello to you, friendly like, so I come to give you this." He took out of his pocket a folded bit of paper and handed it to me.

I unfolded it and found a message, roughly scrawled, followed by the signatures of the six lads. The message was spare and to the point. "Hello, Dr. Watson. Good luck with Mr. Holmes. You'll need it."

I laughed. I thanked Wiggins for cheering me up and squeezed his shoulder.

He giggled and then got up to go, before he remembered another duty he'd been charged with. "Oh, Doctor," he whispered, "Dennis wants me to ask would you mind helping his mother when she has her next baby? It's coming in another month."

"Come fetch me, then."

"Yes, sir. 'Bye." He put on his cap and scurried downstairs again.

In Wiggins I could picture the whole lot before me. The dirty and ragged street urchins had shocked both Mrs. Hudson and myself at first sight, yet they were growing on us now. What a rascally, charming bunch of boys! No wonder they had been curious about me that first day! To them, _I_ was the interloper in Holmes's life; I was the curious newcomer.

As I sat alone contemplating my interview with Wiggins, I became aware once more of the continued strains of Holmes's violin. Slipping the Irregulars' note in my pocket, I got to my feet and went to Holmes's door, knocking on it. "Holmes, you can come out now!"

The music stopped, and after a moment he came to the door and put his head out. "He's gone, is he?"

"Yes." I went over to the side table, looking for any remaining food.

"I suppose you won't tell me what the boy wanted?"

"No." I settled for pouring myself a glass of brandy.

"Why don't you just ring? I'm sure Mrs. Hudson put your meal aside and will be happy to know that you've regained your appetite."

His prediction was correct, and as I ate my belated meal at the table, Holmes lingered within the room, sitting on the sofa and scraping away at his violin. I suppose he was still hoping I would talk. His predicament made me think of a father finding out that he was no longer the favourite in his son's eyes. Not that I believed myself to be favourite now. Mrs. Hudson filled that role nicely, in my opinion, and I was glad that she had found someone to mother now that her beloved old terrier was gone.

I began to wonder how the Irregulars had first met Holmes and become his personal army of spies, and as I did so, a most ungenerous thought occurred to me about the nature of their relationship to the consulting detective. I tried to dismiss the abhorrent suspicion, but could not, especially considering my past experience of Holmes's deviant proclivities. He had most definitely wanted a man once, though he claimed to have since given up the vice. Might he not have acquired another vice for young boys? I desperately hoped not; it would be too disturbing to live with.

So I uneasily turned around to Holmes and interrupted his violin-playing. I had to ask, for my peace of mind. "Holmes," I cleared my throat, "about those boys, Wiggins and the rest, you don't--um? There isn't anything untoward, uh--?"

He had been looking at me with faint annoyance at my incoherence, but his eyes widened suddenly as he realised my suggestion. "No, no, of course not! I would not dream of interfering with the boys, Watson. Besides simply the indecency of it, there is the fact that they should never trust me or work for me again."

I should have known it, and I felt immediately guilty for having doubted him, but he reassured me, shaking his head.

"I cannot blame you for thinking it, I suppose, for they also checked me out rather thoroughly when we first met." He winced ruefully with the memory. "They demanded to know why I was a peculiar, laboratory-haunting bachelor with no friends."

"What did you say?"

"I told them of my complete dedication to my profession and let them spy on my cases for a while until they clamoured to take part. They are all orphans or from poor families, so they are naturally wary of the dangers of the street, especially the lurking scoundrels that scheme to enslave them into vile service. In fact, they had the beginnings of their own network when I met them, spying and watching out for one another. I recruited them for their cunning and savvy, and I am glad to think that their wages from me help in their survival."

"Ah, so your interest in them is charitable!"

"Respectful," he corrected, "and they earn their wages thoroughly by their work."

I laughed at his evident sympathy and fondness for the boys. It pleased me to think of Holmes as a kindly philanthropist. "So you are a saint, then?" I asked with amusement.

He made a face at me, then looked away with a blush. "Not entirely." He smiled slyly. I knew he must be thinking of our wicked episode in the closet; it came to the fore of my mind as well. He picked up his violin again and resumed his abandoned melody.

I could not let it go at that, however; the temptation was far too strong. I rose from the table and went to him, standing close until he could ignore me no longer.

He put down his bow and violin. "What is past is past," he whispered.

"It need not be." I caressed his face with my hand and tried to turn him to me.

He would not look at me, keeping his eyes closed.

I leaned down and kissed his cheek, as he had kissed me at midnight. Then I tried to kiss his lips, but his hands came up defensively, and he held me apart from him.

"You want me. You still want me," I insisted.

He stubbornly held me away by the shoulders, and I listened to him breathe raggedly for several moments. Finally he swallowed and told me, "Close the curtains."

I did so, quickly, and returned to him. He had risen from the sofa and stood now before our fireplace, shaking a bit. I took him into my arms and he sighed, meeting my eyes at last. He kissed me, and I urgently opened his mouth to mine. He tasted the same tobacco-laden way. "You remember?"

He nodded. We kissed, so fiercely, and I even started to untie the sash of his dressing-gown. But he broke away from me suddenly, changing his mind. "No. We must appear before the magistrates Thursday."

"What?" I clung to him.

"Thursday. You must get your rest, and read the manuscript. I must prepare my evidence. No." He pushed free of me and retreated into his bedroom, locking the door.

"Holmes? Please," I begged. I leaned upon his door, listening for him. "Let me in."

He answered faintly, "Not tonight. Not now. Another time."

I was somewhat encouraged, but still frustrated. "Why not now?"

"They'll know."

"Who? The magistrates? How could they?" I wrenched at his doorknob, wishing I knew how to pick a lock.

"Mrs. Hudson--she'll check that you are well in the morning. The workmen--they'll return to bring the new glass. Gregson and Lestrade--I telegrammed them to come tomorrow and see the manuscript from Hope's ally, to bring it before the magistrates. We shall scarcely be alone all day."

"But we are alone now," I insisted.

"There is not time. I will not recover, I will not be myself again. You could not, either."

"Don't speak of it like an illness."

"Is it not like a fever?" he asked, almost fondly. Then after a moment, he warned, "We would be ruined if anyone suspected."

"You had no compunction about that before!"

"That was five years ago."

"It was yesterday!"

I waited there for many minutes, aching for him and hoping he would succumb to the memory of what we had done in that anonymous closet. How we had groped blindly in dark for one another, unable to keep from knocking each other about as we stripped off our clothes. How I had pulled his naked body against me, thrilling in the feel of him in my arms. How we had staggered about trying to find a comfortable position.

Certainly it had not been like my later embraces with Murray--not so sophisticated, not so skilful, not so pain free. I knew that. But that brief encounter had relieved my loneliness and self-loathing for a time. I had been able night after night to remember the tensing of his body when I penetrated him with my fingers, remember the way he swayed on his feet when I knelt before him and tasted his swelling erection. He had done as much for me without hesitation. Could I recover from him? I was never the same again.

"I cannot." This was all that he would say to me, locked behind his bedroom door.

By then I had sunk down to the floor, sitting just outside his room. It hurt me, to have to beg for what he had once given so freely to me. Sick of waiting, I got up at last and retreated to my own bedroom.

I wonder again why my life should be so miserable, but I know the answer, of course. I have always known.


	9. The Mormon Manuscript

Hope died in the night in his cell; so no Thursday, no magistrates.

Because I was angrily sulking in my bed, with a chair jammed against my door so that Holmes could not sneak in again, I did not learn the news about Hope until late in the morning, when Holmes told me and also slid a copy of the _Times_ beneath the door as a confirmation of his words. Nevertheless, I did not let him in nor speak to him; he must suffer awhile too.

Later, Mrs. Hudson came to the door, hoping to make me well with some broth. I could hardly leave her standing there, what with the workmen installing the new window glass, so I let her in.

As she tried to mother me, I told her that my constitution had been ruined in Afghanistan, and that I just needed to lie still. She seems to think that Holmes's depressions have somehow become contagious. Perhaps he really is just sulking when he lies there so immobile and vacant; about what, I do not know. Mrs. Hudson could not persuade me to eat, so she left the tray for me and departed, looking worried.

I sipped some of the broth to relieve my hunger, but remained stubbornly within my room, even after the workmen had packed up and gone. I read through the _Times_ and then perused the manuscript, which could no longer be of any use to the deceased prisoner. According to Hope's friend, Mormons were indeed involved in the doomed romance of Lucy Ferrier and Jefferson Hope, and in his subsequent revenge upon Drebber and Stangerson, who had left the protection of their Church some years later. The tale might make for a curious footnote on the mystery, or else a nice little novel or play, if it was reworked a bit.

With Mrs. Hudson's departure, I had left the chair aside as she wished, for she did not deem it healthy or wise that I should block the door, in my condition. So when Holmes soon took the opportunity to come in again, I was not surprised, but neither was I pleased. I turned away from him and pretended to be absorbed in the manuscript. I heard him lock the door behind him and in a moment more felt him climb upon my bed.

He reached over me and snatched the manuscript from my hands, throwing it on the floor. "Talk to me."

I did not.

He now lay close and slid his insistent arms around me, speaking softly behind my ear, "I was too abrupt in asking you to stop, but you have too much of a temper. Make up with me." He nuzzled the back of my neck and tried unbuttoning my shirt.

I pushed his hands away and shook my head. "It isn't that easy. You can't just have me at your beck and call, wanting me one minute, then refusing me--"

"I am inconstant," he said.

"How is that an apology?" I demanded, trying to free myself from his embrace.

He sighed, and took on his eminently reasonable tone. "You wish to hurt me, Watson? Make me suffer? Deny me your body all you want, but only you will suffer. I have made that sensual activity superfluous to me for five years, remember? You do tempt me, but I do not suffer as you do."

I scowled, frustrated that I had no way to spite him, but then Holmes continued.

"If you wish to hurt me, deny me your company. I suffer when you don't speak to me, when you shut me out. You made me suffer not just today, but yesterday too, and for what reason? I suggested that you take a lover, and suddenly you lock yourself away. You don't want to see me because I wish you to be satisfied?"

"Why not with you?" I finally turned round to face him. "Why push me from you to any stranger and make me feel unwanted?"

His face softened. "Is that what you thought?" He caressed my cheek and tried to kiss me, but I held him away.

He shrugged. "Why not me?" he spoke with a half smile. "How little did you see me when I was absorbed with my case these past few days? How unfair was I to you last night, in the heat of your lust? My work must always come first for me, Watson; no exceptions. How cold-blooded and inhuman am I? I see how you regard me at times, but I cannot be more warm, more tender, for emotions interfere with my work. How many secrets do I keep from you? Many, and I _must_ keep them. If you really want to have that kind of a lover, Watson, you are more than welcome to try."

I blinked at him, feeling quite discouraged. "You mean, you won't tell me about your depressions?"

"No," he answered immediately.

"You won't trust me--?"

"No. I will not be open. I will not be kind. I will not be sentimental. If you can take me the way that I am, have me, gladly."

I watched his grey eyes. "I see."

He did not wait for me to think over his terms any further, but leaned down and kissed my throat with a smile. "I like you so much, Watson," he sighed against my shoulder, "and we came rather close last night, did we not?" He chuckled lightly, then shook his head. "So I cannot let you suffer more. Make up with me, and tonight, when Gregson and Lestrade have gone, I'll come and do something for you, hmm? If you wisely decide to keep looking for a lover better suited to you, I can still indulge you from time to time, should you need me to."

With that offer, he rose from my bed and straightened his rumpled clothes. Then he retrieved the tossed manuscript from the floor.

"Gregson and Lestrade?" I managed to ask. "They're still coming?"

"Yes, they sent word that they wished to see this, out of curiosity, if nothing else. We might also discuss the case a bit further, and I can discreetly give each of them my bill. If you wish to join us, Watson, please do. I should be glad of your company, and you leaving your room will keep Mrs. Hudson from worrying about your health. We can be alone more." He paused to unlock my door. "You are done reading?" he asked, indicating the manuscript.

I nodded, and he left with it. I have not locked the door again. Am I disgusting to be so weak for him?

* * *

I cleaned up and dressed, finally venturing forth into the sitting-room just in time for the tail-end of lunch. Holmes smiled at me and remarked to the maid that she should inform Mrs. Hudson that the illness has lifted. She turned around in surprise.

"Doctor, shall I have Mrs. Hudson warm yours up again?"

I nodded, and she cleared the table except for my place setting. "There's also a tray I left in my bedroom."

"I'll come back for it, sir." She bustled away with her arms full.

Holmes remained at the table with me and offered me some tobacco for my pipe. As we smoked, I glanced at the newly restored window.

"Excellent work," Holmes commented.

"You don't plan to give them any repeat business, do you?"

He chuckled. "No, I shall refrain from violent captures at home, for a while at least. I must get on the landlady's good side again, lest she be inclined to throw me out and keep charming old you at a reduced price."

"Have you read the manuscript yet?"

He nodded. "Interesting in its way, though whether any of its facts could be verified, I do not know. The account was obviously coloured by a bias against these Mormons; Hope's friend fully sympathises with him and condones his home-grown idea of justice. Unquestioning loyalty of this sort suggests to me that Hope's accomplice witnessed the original events in America, by being a close comrade or relative of Hope, or else of this Lucy Ferrier; thus he has a personal stake in Hope's vengeance. Yet these deaths occurred in 1860; any friend from that time surely would be middle-aged or older by now. How does this reconcile with the young, active man who disguised himself as 'Mrs. Sawyer'? It puzzles me."

"That does seem a difficulty indeed. "

The maid returned with my reheated lunch and then retrieved the tray of broth from my room. I dined quietly and read the afternoon editions while Holmes looked on me in that puzzling way of his. Sometimes I believe he thinks of me as a fond pet, whose companionship is soothing and comfortable to him. My conversation sometimes amuses and stimulates him, though, so we are more like friends in that regard.

"I like you so much," he had said. Not that I had expected him to love me; we are still just starting to know one another, and he is clearly no romantic. But I did expect him to desire me, to not be so casual and collected about "doing something for me." When I kissed him last night, I seemed to awaken in him the same fever, connexion, and frailty that we had shared five years ago. Even his later urgency to stop our embrace and retreat behind his door, with his arguments of caution and safety, had seemed emotional and human. From his voice, I thought he was afraid of me, or afraid of losing his careful control over his passions.

I do not want him to come to my bed as a courtesy to me, because he pities my suffering. I want him to suffer and ache, to come to me because he simply needs me, as when he was literally shaking at my touch last night. He has shared so much of his work and his life with me already, so surely I can make him share his bed frankly and without reserve.

"Don't come to my room tonight," I said to him.

He glanced at me sharply, and would have protested had I not interrupted.

"Don't come; just wait for me. I'll come to your room."

"Yes, if you prefer."

It was a small point, of course, wanting him to leave his door unlocked for me. Yet it opened up possibilities.

I changed the subject. "What did Gregson and Lestrade think of the news this morning?"

"Their message did not say much," Holmes remarked, "but I believe they were wild about the death. Where will their grand advertisement be now?"

"I don't see that they had very much to do with his capture."

"What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done?" Then he shrugged off his cynicism. "Never mind. I would not have missed the investigation for anything. There has been no better case within my recollection. Simple as it was, there were several most instructive points about it."

"Simple!"

Holmes smiled, then happily expounded upon the case, telling me how he reasoned backwards from the clues at hand. Most people, he observed, could reason forward from cause to effect, but few could reason from effect to cause like he could. He evidently enjoyed going over the case point by point again, filling in the gaps where he had not taken me completely into his confidence before.

I realised with pleasure that despite his denials in my bedroom, Holmes _did_ already trust me in some things; I merely had to coax him to trust me in some more.

Scarcely had the maid removed the remains of my late lunch, when Gregson and Lestrade arrived together, shaking hands with us and remarking upon the unfortunate death of Jefferson Hope. "Good that you were with us, Doctor, to spot his heart trouble," Lestrade pointed out.

I dismissed it. "No doubt Hope would have informed you of it all the same, so that he could tell you his statement."

"Ah, but we might have thought it a ploy and not sent for a doctor in time to confirm it."

They sat down with us and quickly asked to examine the manuscript, along with the original parcel and introductory note that had come with it. Once they had inspected these items for clues, in a manner that attempted to imitate Holmes while being superior to him, they embarked upon reading the manuscript. We four alternated reading it out loud, and afterward the two official detectives argued about the merits of trying to identify and arrest this accomplice of Jefferson Hope. How much had he aided in the murders? Would his capture bring forth a trial that would glorify both their names before the public and the Yard?

Holmes assured them that with Hope's death, the accomplice would cunningly disappear, and any pursuit of him would not be worth the trouble, since Hope's mission of vengeance was clearly finished.

So Lestrade cleared his throat and nudged Gregson to bring up a new topic.

The latter hesitated with what seemed like dread and then humbly asked Holmes just how he had solved the murders of Drebber and Stangerson. Holmes immediately began a detailed lecture on all the points that he had discussed already with me, so I excused myself to my room.

I can still hear Holmes's muffled voice from the other room, with little response from the other men; clearly his favourite subject is his method of detection. Hopefully, he will come to a conclusion at last, so that Gregson and Lestrade can leave. I imagine that the Yard detectives view Holmes's discourse as an inevitable bitter pill needing to be swallowed, in order to learn how to get good enough to trump Holmes someday.

* * *

When I heard them rise to go, I came out and shook their hands heartily, wishing them good luck in future investigations. They thanked me and took their leave of us. I was so pleased at being alone at last that I hurriedly closed the curtains and embraced Holmes. He laughed and kissed me awhile, sinking down with me onto our sofa. "So you've made your decision, then? You've definitely set your cap for me?"

I nodded. It cheered me that he actually appeared flattered that I wanted him as a lover, not just an occasional convenience. I am stubborn that way.

He cautioned that I should go lock the door if I wished to continue our pleasures.

Instead I behaved myself and returned to my armchair by the fire, leaving him lying upon the sofa. "You could have cut back the length of your speech, you know."

He smiled. "I am sorry. I did not know that it was so urgent for you to have a hold of me. Perhaps I'll abbreviate my lectures in future, no doubt to the detriment of Gregson's and Lestrade's education."

"Holmes, I know your profession is important, and no doubt they'll become better detectives if they know where they went wrong. --Even they must see that, for they sit through your speeches when they'd much rather wipe the superior smirk off your face. But you do go on, Holmes, more than necessary."

He raised an eyebrow at my honest opinion and finally looked sheepish. "Well, perhaps so," he said with a shrug. "It is my opportunity to have them acknowledge the true worth of my methods; I remember in the beginning that it took a great deal of work for me to even earn their attention, much less their patronage as my clients."

"Well you have that now, don't you? In fact, your merits should be publicly recognised. You should publish an account of the case. If you won't, I will for you."

Holmes laughed and shook his head. "You may do what you like, Doctor. You should be wary, however, lest Gregson and Lestrade want to take back their fees when they read such an account in print."

"Oh I can flatter them a bit, or something."

Holmes remained sceptical, but he enjoyed watching me make a list of documents and notes that I should need to refer to, in writing up the case. He tossed me over the manuscript, which had apparently not been confiscated as official police property.

When we perused the evening papers over our supper, Holmes found a paragraph in the _Echo_ referring to the conclusion of the Brixton Mystery. It commented upon Jefferson Hope's death and alluded to the Mormon history, then gave credit for the unravelling of the mystery to Lestrade and Gregson, who both would be receiving a testimonial. Scant mention was made of Holmes as an amateur detective hoping to someday attain the same degree of skill as the professionals.

Holmes laughed it off, but I thought he deserved better and repeated my intention to write up the case. "I have all the facts in my journal, and the public shall know them."

He eyed me keenly then and murmured, "I should like to know the facts in your journal. Fascinating facts, I'm sure. Have you... written of us?"

I averted my eyes and said nothing. His implied question was, would I write of our bedroom activities tonight? I do not know. Maybe. It shall never see the light of day in publication, whatever happens.

After our dishes were cleared, Holmes locked the sitting-room door and we embraced. For a while he indulged me passionately upon the sofa, though we were careful of the servants hearing us; we must wait until they have gone to bed before we can start in earnest. I so enjoy taking away his breath with my kisses.

In time I let him go and stretched my legs, pacing about the room with increasing impatience.

Holmes still lay where I left him, gazing into the fire with a kind of drowsy apathy, and I began to recognise the vacant look in his eyes.

"Holmes!" I said sharply.

He snapped out of it and focused his eyes again. "I am fine. Hand me my pipe and tobacco please." I did so, and stood watching him fixedly.

"If you are tense, go write awhile. It will soothe you."

"Will you go wait for me, please?" I did not want to find him comatose by the time I returned.

"Of course." He rose from the sofa and picked up his violin and bow. "I shall pass my time with an occupation, since it concerns you so much." He gave me a kiss, and then retired to his room.

It is safe now; the servants will be in bed at present, and Mrs. Hudson will not hear us downstairs. I have changed for the night and found my salve; I do not believe I have forgotten anything. He stopped playing his violin awhile ago, so I hope he is still waiting for me and has not succumbed to that vacancy again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did rework the Mormon plot into a play called _Angels of Darkness_. He fortunately never published the thing, because it messes up the entire chronology, making Watson the hero who marries Lucy Ferrier, despite the fact that the Mormon history was set twenty years ago, when Watson was just a boy, and despite the fact that Lucy being alive and happy would give Jefferson Hope no motive for revenge upon Drebber and Stangerson. So he wrote an alternate universe fanfic of his own novel?


	10. An Intimate Night

Though I knew he had left it unlocked, I lingered briefly at his closed door, savouring the moment before I turned his knob and felt it yield to me. When I opened the door, he was sitting expectantly on the edge of his bed, and he put out his pipe and knocked out the ashes when he saw me.

I came inside and shut his door, locking it; he had already drawn the curtains on his window. As he awaited me, I untied my dressing-gown and advanced slowly towards him, hanging up my gown on the near bedpost. Then I joined him on his bed and we embraced.

He kissed me, and I pushed him down onto his back, poising myself over his lank body. It had been so long.

He tried to free his mouth from mine for a moment. "How do you want me?"

I silenced him with more kisses. Then I started untying the sash of his gown, and we began undressing one another. He unbuttoned my shirt and dragged it off my shoulder, making me wince and halt abruptly.

"Watson?" He looked concerned.

I tried to dismiss my pain. "It's my wound. I forgot it. I haven't had someone since before Maiwand."

"Here." Turning me over gently, he lay me flat beneath him and then leaned close, kissing and massaging my scar so attentively. He eased the rest of the shirt off my shoulder, then traced his lissom hands down my naked chest. Years in Afghanistan had darkened my skin in places, which were only beginning to fade.

I watched his eyes. "I have changed much?"

"No more than I."

It was a lie; these five years have worn me far more roughly than him.

I ran my fingers along his scarred arm and he nuzzled my shoulder again. He asked me curiously about my wound, the battle, and the later fever that wore me so thin and haggard. I answered him absently, pushing off the bottoms of his pyjamas and tangling his slim legs with mine.

He has not changed much; he did age a little, but the overall shape and strength of his figure are much like I remember. Still, the dark of the closet had been so complete that I discovered much by simply being able to see him now. He in turn explored me as though I were full of secrets to uncover, like some mysterious clue from his case, or like a child's new and fascinating toy.

Seeing one another certainly helped us to avoid bruising each other, but Holmes kept turning us about in his desire to reach inaccessible parts of me. "Don't wear me out," I warned breathlessly. "We haven't begun yet."

So he broke off wrestling with me and lay back on his bed, watching me with his grey eyes and waiting.

I smiled and dug into the pockets of my dressing-gown. At his query, I replied that I had brought my salve for the sake of comfort and my other precautions for the sake of health.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You have had many since me?"

"No, just the one. He had very many partners, though, so we took care. I believe I did not catch anything, but symptoms can occasionally be so mild so as to go unnoticed."

So I instructed him with the salve and the protective sheaths, to allow us to indulge freely. Again he seemed surprised at my new skill and deliberateness in lovemaking, so different from our rough-and-tumble crudeness before, when I had lacked for experience, but not lust. I had not realised that it would seem such a drastic change to him. He appeared chagrined at finding himself out his depth.

"I never made a special study of it," he excused awkwardly.

"Of course not." I sucked his long fingers one by one to relax him.

In this subject at least, Holmes was the apprentice instead of the master; the lack of guile in his grey eyes reminded me that he was in fact years younger than I, and I truly felt it in his deference to my experience. Pressing my advantage, I was able to surprise, tease, and seduce him as if he were an ordinary man with feelings; the incisive and cold-blooded reasoner had faded from view, and was supplanted by a human being at last.

I hungered to have him in a million different ways. As I coated him inside and out with my fingers, Holmes caught his breath and grew ever more passionate for me. He parted his legs with wonderful flexibility and I started to penetrate him, but he tensed up considerably and I had to withdraw; it was too much too soon.

After some experimentation, I found a method he liked much better. He clawed at me and moaned "John" like a madman until he came, spilling into the sheath inside me; I could feel his spasms of ecstasy and recall how I had felt when Murray first rode me like this.

He was still biting his lip as I bent to kiss him; I eased myself off and discarded his sheath for him. He did not say anything when I lay down close between his legs, and I was tempted, but I did not try penetrating him again just yet. I anchored myself at his thigh and thrust against him while he held onto me.

Then I discarded my sheath carelessly to the floor and rolled over. We lay there resting, disinclined to clean up after ourselves at the moment.

Holmes turned to me, running a hand through my hair. "Tell me, about him. About you."

I shifted and met his eyes.

He leaned near, laying his head against my shoulder, while his fingers fondly traced my wound once more.

So I started from the beginning. "The first man that ever awakened my passion was a 'Varsity team-mate of mine whose touch I craved madly, but he did not realise the nature of my passion and reciprocated only my friendship. Still I hung about him and fantasised about him night after night alone. After a while, I thought perhaps that it was best to stick to my private sin, and thereby not risk either rejection or being caught.

"When I took my Bachelor's degree and began working at Bart's, I tried to court women and save money for a private practice, just as my family expected me to, but I kept hungering for many of the young medical students surrounding me, especially one who expressed his admiration and awe of me after I put off a practice by signing up to obtain a doctorate instead. I was so frustrated and lonely, I thought I'd go mad! That was when I came to your university and found you. I wonder that you enjoyed it at all, I was so desperate and awkward."

He smiled and closed his eyes, nuzzling my cheek. "It was all right."

I kissed him and remembered how long ago it was. "After that day, you served as my fantasy for a while and I managed to last another two years. I entered Netley and then the Army in hopes that either I'd be disciplined into overcoming my weakness or else that some soldier would make me his own.

"There I met Murray, my orderly. At first I felt guilty to take advantage of my position, but he was eager and bold, pouncing on me without a trace of innocence. He'd been with many men, and he taught me... everything."

Holmes nodded, pursing his lips. "Perhaps," he suggested, "we will explore more of what he taught you."

I thought about that, and also about how different Holmes was from Murray. "The last I saw of him was at the battle of Maiwand. Then I woke up in hospital and was told that he had been commended for his bravery in rescuing me, and afterward was transferred to another regiment. He was no doubt chasing some other man already, though I had occasional letters from him asking if I was well. I answered him until I fell ill and was lost to months of delirium and fever. I suppose it was my punishment for my unbridled wickedness with him." I sighed. "When I returned to London, I made inquiries with friends still in the Army, but could never learn Murray's whereabouts. So I have been alone, polluted only by myself until now."

"Suffering," he said, and sucked gently on my fingers.

I took his hand in mine and kissed it, exhaling morbidly. "I wonder what my punishment shall be for this?"

He raised his head and smiled with that cool confidence of his. "Do not wonder about such things, Watson. Just enjoy it while we are here." Then he chuckled. "Perhaps I can even steer you from further dangers. If not for me, you might have resorted to some rent-boys off the street, or have got into the clutches of some blackmailer by now."

"So you are my safety net, then." I suppose that he did not know I had once mistaken him for such a scoundrel, when his net of safety had appeared to be a web of peril. It did not matter anymore, and I lay there with him, listening to his quiet breathing until we fell asleep together.

He woke me in the early hours before dawn, and we cleaned up our mess. I tied on my dressing-gown and he threw the rest of my clothes to me. I hurried back to my bedroom while he put on his own gown and discreetly unlocked the sitting-room door.

I suppose he is still in his bed now. I think I left my salve in his room, but no matter; I will be there again.

* * *

As we breakfasted this morning, I learned what Holmes had meant on the night he said he would not be able to "recover" quickly from sex with me. He attempted to be his usual aloof self, and he seemed to succeed whenever we were not alone, but then his discipline would lapse the moment that the servant departed. I would catch Holmes gazing at me in a fond, wistful way that could not be attributed to a merely innocent, friendly interest.

I smiled at him and asked whether he needed me to close the curtains on the windows.

He cleared his throat and stubbornly returned his attention to his food. But his grey eyes found their way back to me soon enough, and I did rise and close the curtains then.

Holmes blushed and appeared chagrined by his weakness, his humanity. He shook his head and whispered, "You do not know, Watson, how long it took me to return to the laboratory, after our time in the closet."

He looked so serious, and I was too ecstatic from last night's pleasures to keep from teasing him naughtily. I started to ask Holmes if he had ever got back his handcuffs from Scotland Yard, but was interrupted by a knock on our door.

"A Mr. Cooper to see you gentlemen," our landlady informed us.

It surprised me that anyone besides Gregson and Lestrade would call upon us both, and neither I nor Holmes recognised the name given.

We thought it must be a client, and Holmes, believing he was not recovered enough yet, claimed that we were too busy to receive Mr. Cooper; the fellow might try back another day, or else take his business elsewhere. Holmes's response surprised me, especially since he had said before that work must always come first for him, but perhaps he was feeling secure due to his recent success. I myself did want to be alone with Holmes, but I also realised that a case would probably forestall Holmes's next depression--although I hoped to do that myself with more nights spent in his bed.

Mrs. Hudson began to withdraw to send our visitor away, but the visitor, who had probably been eavesdropping behind her, pushed impatiently past her.

"You must see me, sirs!" the impetuous young man pled with us from our doorway. "I mean, please receive me, after you have finished your breakfast of course. I shall not take up too much of your time."

"You should learn some manners," I rebuked him.

He acknowledged his rudeness with a bowed head and a contrite voice. "I'm sorry, Doctor, but I understand that you and Mr. Holmes are possessed of information that is important to me, and it has made me too eager." He also turned to Mrs. Hudson and made humble apologies to her, which she accepted disdainfully before turning away and descending the stairs with dignity.

The fair-haired young man remained in an earnest, penitent posture by our door, looking to each of us for some decision.

Holmes eyed the fellow piercingly and assessed the risk of allowing him to stay. Then he cleared his throat. "Close the door behind you and take that seat there. Now, state your name and business."

"Robert Cooper. I'm a reporter for the _Daily Telegraph_. You won't know me, of course, for I am still too junior on the staff to get any by-lines yet."

"You do look rather young," Holmes observed. "Scarcely twenty, if that."

The young man smiled awkwardly, quite aware of his boyish, almost delicate features. He hardly looked older than any newsboy selling papers on a street corner. "It's the persistence and energy they want in a reporter," he explained, "and they hope to sort of 'raise me' in the profession. Meanwhile I'm paying my dues as they say."

"And what, pray tell, do you want with us?" Holmes appeared distinctly amused.

"It's about this Brixton Mystery, sir. I understand that you were both involved in the official investigation, the Doctor by advertising for the ring and you by arranging the capture of Jefferson Hope in these very rooms."

"And do you want a scoop?" Holmes raised his eyebrows sceptically. "The Brixton Mystery is surely old news now."

"Yes, but it's all I can get at present, and some readers might still be curious to read more about it. Yesterday, for example, the reports in the papers mentioned that there was a long history behind it all, involving Mormons or something. I should like to do a piece on that if I can, and also hear your own accounts of the investigation. The Scotland Yard detectives would be less inclined to tell me about it themselves; they'd scoff at me for my youth."

I admit I felt a little peeved that this brash youngster intended to put forth an account of the case, making my own plans to do so redundant. Yet I could not blame him, either. He looked so frightfully boyish with those long eyelashes, and he seemed not unlike Holmes in his struggle to be taken seriously in his profession. So I gave in. "You might indeed have a scoop, young man, for despite what was printed earlier, Mr. Holmes here was actually responsible for the solving of the mystery, not Gregson and Lestrade."

"Was he?" Cooper's brown eyes brightened with interest.

Holmes fairly scowled at me for my remarks.

"Yes, and he deserves public recognition of his merits. Here, you can borrow this." I rose to retrieve the Mormon manuscript I had left at my desk; I knew my private journals would need substantial editing before I could allow anyone to read them.

"Watson, don't--"

I ignored Holmes's protest, feeling glad of my magnanimous gesture. "This gives the Mormon history of the affair," I said, handing the manuscript to Cooper, and you can ask me anything about the investigation itself."

The blond youth smiled at me and took out his notebook eagerly. "Thank you, Doctor. I am curious first to know what occurred after Mr. Jefferson Hope's arrest on Tuesday. Do you have any idea of his exact statement to the police upon his capture, and what has been done with his remains and possessions since his death?"

Holmes laughed out loud, startling us both. "You surprise me," he said. "You surprise and interest me a great deal, Mr. Cooper." He folded his hands and looked the reporter squarely in the eye. "You are Jefferson Hope's secret ally, are you not?"

The accused dropped his pencil, and I sat dumbfounded.

Holmes sprang up from his chair and locked the sitting-room door, slipping the key into his pocket. "Do not think," he shook his head sternly, "that because I am but a few years older than yourself, Mr. Cooper, that you can fool me the way you did the last time. I cannot be caught off my guard twice!

"You recognised my friend Watson here and called him 'Doctor,' before either of us had introduced ourselves to you. You believed that Watson advertised for the ring, an impression you could have easily obtained by noticing the advertisement that I placed using his name. But the incident of the wedding ring was _not_ a part of the official investigation, as you suppose; Gregson and Lestrade saw no significance in the clue, disregarding it entirely, and the ring was never mentioned in any journalist's account of the Brixton Mystery. You could only have known of our unofficial pursuit of the ring, and believed it to be significant to the investigation, by having been here yourself, as Mrs. Sawyer.

"No, Mr. Cooper, you may give plausible excuses about your low rank in the press and your scrounging for scraps, but what really brought you here was Jefferson Hope, not your supposed article."

Cooper still sat frozen and unnerved while Holmes smiled, immensely pleased that his state of recovery from me had not hampered his ability to deduce. "I'll admit you confused me when I observed that you did indeed possess all outward signs of being an actual reporter. Nor could I detect any trace of greasepaint or makeup on you at present, but then I realised that your ingenious disguise this time was to wear no disguise at all, to show us the person that had been hiding behind the 'Mrs. Sawyer' persona all along. A clever trick, but not clever enough!"

I gazed at the cringing youth with astonishment. Could this slight, callow creature truly be the cunning accomplice of Jefferson Hope? I could not imagine his motives.

Holmes perched on a nearby chair and interrogated Cooper closely. "You might well have disappeared yesterday, young man, so why did you risk returning to our rooms today? Why come without our having coaxed you at all?"

"Does it matter?" the fellow spoke at last, his voice quite small and faint.

"Of course it does!" Holmes grew impatient. "Do you want the ring? Has it some further duty to perform for you or Hope? You cannot want the manuscript, for that document would be so precious to you that you surely sent Watson only a copy of the original. Or is it information you desire? Do you wish to know Hope's exact statement at his capture so that you can be sure he did not betray you to the police?"

"He--he wouldn't. He wished to protect me and he would have to admit..." Cooper swallowed uneasily and shook his head. "I don't care if he did. I just want to know if he mentioned... if he said anything for me. If he had any last words before he died." He seemed disconcertingly on the verge of tears, glancing at both of us with pleading eyes. "What will you do with me? Turn me in? But will I be able to see him again? Just once, before they give him some anonymous, pauper's grave? Please?"

I found the poor wretch's despondency and attachment to his friend unsettling.

Holmes was unmoved. "Explain yourself first, Mr. Cooper, and then we shall decide whether or not to reveal you to the police. As you are young and perhaps impressionable, you might deserve mercy for your part in this affair, so long as you stay out of further trouble."

"I don't care about myself!" he declared, breaking down suddenly. "It's just as well that you found me out. What is my life worth now? What would I do without him?" Cooper buried his head in his hands, weeping.

Though I hardly knew him, I felt an urge to put an arm around the youth and hush his tears. He seemed so fragile; no wonder Hope had felt an obligation to protect his friend.

"Control yourself!" Holmes admonished. "You are young, yes, but no schoolboy, and I will not be manipulated with ploys for sympathy!"

Cooper quieted after the rebuke, but did not cease, huddling against the chair's arm.

Holmes scowled and folded his arms.

I discouraged Holmes from scolding the lad further, and spoke gently instead, "Will you not tell us, at least, why you were loyal to Jefferson Hope? Why you condoned the two murders he committed?"

Sniffling and slightly raising his head, Cooper timidly indicated the Mormon manuscript. "Did you not read it?"

Holmes interrupted me. "Yes, but facts are what we need, sir. Facts. You ought to know better, being a journalist. You are not old enough to have witnessed any of events that you relate in that account, so I assume that you relied on Hope's memory of things he witnessed and things the Ferriers told him of their past. One man's fading memory, twenty years since, hardly makes for unimpeachable testimony."

"He was a good man! A noble man seeking justice for horrible crimes--"

Holmes waved away Cooper's protests. "You sympathised with him, clearly, but I reserve judgement in the absence of reliable facts. Now why did you trust this man? A man you could not have met until he arrived in England a few weeks ago? Why did you compose this lengthy tract in defence of him? Why did you risk yourself again and again?"

"Why did you trap him, you busybody?" Cooper flung back with sudden fury. "Why did you interfere when you're not even the police? How dare you set traps for him, when I forgot to warn him against you! I should have saved him. I should have--" He choked on his emotion and sunk back into his chair, moaning softly as he wept again.

Holmes glanced at me, puzzled as much as I was by this indecent display of emotion. So much feeling, for someone he knew so briefly.

As the youth sobbed without control, I awkwardly attempted to comfort him, pouring a brandy and patting his shoulder. "Calm down, please. Have a drink to steady your nerves."

He only shrank away from me.

Holmes impatiently grasped the fellow's shoulders and tried to shake some sense into him. "Stop it, Mr. Cooper! Stop this bawling and compose yourself!"

I put down the drink and made Holmes let him go; the shaking was not helping anyway. Cooper only folded his arms around himself and whimpered, before returning to his laments about not having done enough for Jefferson Hope.

Holmes stared at Cooper crossly, no doubt regretting that he had ever allowed the young man to stay. We had learned little about his association with Jefferson Hope, and the hysterical tears were fraying our nerves.

I stood by Holmes and rubbed his shoulders.

"Watson!" he whispered irritably, trying to refuse my touch.

I continued anyway, and as the young man was not looking, and the curtains were all closed, I risked planting a kiss on Holmes's cheek.

Holmes squeezed my hands, but then firmly pushed me away, clearing his throat.

"Well, what should we do?" I said, going to retrieve my medical bag. I opened it and motioned to Holmes, silently asking whether we ought to sedate the fellow, since he still had not exhausted himself with tears.

But Holmes was not looking at me, his eyes narrowly focused on Cooper with a new fascination and understanding. He leaned nearer to the sobbing lad, his dark brows deeply furrowed. "You loved him, didn't you? You loved Hope."

That whisper caused Cooper's wracking tremors to subside. He choked down a few more sorrowful gasps and then raised his fair head slowly, turning to look at Holmes. I realised as I looked into his swollen, red-rimmed eyes that Holmes's intuition was correct; this young man had indeed been mourning over Hope as one would over a lost lover.

Cooper stared at Holmes with shock, unable to deny it or to defend himself. He finally spoke with defeat, "So you know." Then he frowned and glanced at both of us accusingly. "You think I'm sick, don't you? You'll stick me in some horrid institution to cure me of my perversion. More like torture me. I won't go with you." He got up from his chair and began to back away from us. "I won't go. I'd rather rot in prison, or drown myself in the Thames. Don't you dare touch me!"

"Calm down, please!" I urged, trying to look as friendly as possible. I feared that he might try throwing himself out the window like his friend Hope, if he could not escape by the door.

"You should listen to the Doctor, Cooper," Holmes attempted to soothe him with his reasonable tone of voice.

"Why?" he scorned us both. "Is he one of those alienists? Or the director of a looney bin?"

"No, he's not. He's the same friendly chap he was when you retrieved the ring as Mrs. Sawyer. He's the same doctor who patched up Hope's many injuries when he was captured in these rooms--"

"Injuries?" Cooper turned to me with horror. "What injuries? What did you do to him? He had a heart condition!"

"We did not know," I answered. "He only told us afterward. Believe me, he was strong as an ox then, and we barely captured him at all."

Holmes shrugged indifferently, "Hope had not long to live anyway."

That unfortunate remark made Cooper despondent once more. "I know," he whispered. "The doctor said so. I just thought, I could keep him alive as long as possible. I thought--" He gave a choking sob again.

I quickly approached and offered him the brandy again. Shaking all over, Cooper acquiesced as I sat him down on the sofa. He was about to sip from the glass, when he stopped and looked up sharply. "Wait, you're drugging me, aren't you?" he pushed away from me, spilling the drink, and started to rise again. "You'll cart me off somewhere."

Holmes halted him with his iron grip. "No, we won't. In fact we can keep your secret safe from the authorities, whether medical or legal."

"And why would you do that?" he demanded.

"Because I could not care less about whom you wish to sleep with! Any man's deviance is his own business as far as I'm concerned. I care about murder, theft, blackmail--real crimes worthy of detection and punishment. I don't give a damn about your taste in lovers!"

"Why should I believe you?" He was still afraid.

Holmes smiled suddenly. "You don't have to believe _me_. Watson will do, won't he? Why did you trust Watson, Mr. Cooper? Is there something sympathetic about him? He's the man you sent your Mormon story to you; he's the man you asked to have mercy on Hope."

Cooper said nothing, looking at me then.

I searched for something to say. "Do trust us. We only wish to help."

He pondered that awhile, and contritely whispered, "I'm sorry I spilled that drink on you, Doctor."

"That's all right," I said, still trying to dry myself and clean up the broken glass.

Cooper sat down then.

Holmes found the young man's calmness quite encouraging, and he pulled up a chair, gesturing for me to come join them. "Leave that, Watson. A maid can get it."

"We'll forget about it," I protested, "as we did all the mess the other day."

"Watson!" He was mildly irritated.

I saw Cooper gaze at Holmes's face for a moment, perhaps seeing some tenderness there that suggested our intimacy to him. We were friends yes, but I was not sure if he saw that we were lovers too, if Holmes's face seemed that transparent to me alone. Indeed, I wondered if my own face were transparent at the moment.

I rose at last and sat beside young Cooper on the sofa.

"Thank you, Watson. Now, Mr. Cooper, are you in a proper frame of mind to speak to us rationally?"

He nodded, glanced at me, and then addressed Holmes quietly. "You asked me before, why I trusted Jefferson Hope, when I knew him so briefly." He shrugged. "I just did. It's the same way that I trust Dr. Watson here. I don't doubt my judgement about Jefferson. You can think I'm impressionable, gullible, if you like, but I sensed such a good heart in him, such a noble heart." He closed his eyes and sighed heavily.

Holmes feared the return of hysterical emotion, but I gestured to him that it was all right.

"Tell us about him," I prompted. "How did you meet him?"

Cooper hesitated, swallowing. "I don't know if you'd understand. Maybe you'd think I was more sick. Maybe you wouldn't want to protect me anymore, Doctor."

I was not sure what to say, and Holmes tried to be helpful, venturing a theory. "Did Hope arrive in England, know his health was failing, and realise he needed assistance to accomplish his vengeance? Thus he sought out someone to write his story for him, in order to gain sympathy for his cause."

Cooper stared at Holmes as if he were mad. "He never knew I wrote that for him! He told me the whole thing one night, and I--" He shook his head. "You don't know anything about how it happened."

Holmes was peeved. "Well, tell us, then."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I noted in Chapter 1 of Prelude, Watson should have been able to practice medicine as soon as he earned his Bachelor's, and it is unusual for someone to work for the higher Doctor's degree unless one's intention is to do pure research. Watson always seemed inclined to actively practice medicine, whether in the army or in civilian life, so the only reason I can think of for him to earn the extra degree would be his anxiety about having to go get a practice and get married, as his family expected of him.


	11. Cooper's Story

The youth struggled for words. "Well, he was lost, you see. I didn't know at the time, but Jefferson was new to town, roaming about with a map so he could learn landmarks and streets for his job as a cab driver. He just wandered right in, not knowing what kind of place it was, not knowing anything. I-I don't know if I should explain, if it would shock you... That part of town, it's just--it's infamous, the men of that persuasion find it so easily." Cooper flushed and grew more uncomfortable by the moment.

Holmes shook his head. "I assure you, young man, that nothing you say can shock us. You admitted already that you had a deviant love for Jefferson Hope."

"Yes," he said, but he kept staring down at his hands, unable to continue.

"Watson, get him another brandy, will you? Come now, Cooper. We can keep anything you say in confidence, and we are worldly enough to know about the shady sort of districts that you describe. In fact, Watson, where did you put that list of addresses I gave you the other night?"

I shot Holmes a warning glance, brought Cooper his drink, and resumed my seat.

The lad sipped the brandy slowly and seemed eased by my presence.

Holmes, however, had not finished with his indiscretions. He pursed his lips. "Would it interest you to know, Cooper, that Watson here is a deviant as well?"

"Holmes!" I sat horrified.

He continued jauntily, "You should hear the perversions that he practised with his lover in the army."

"Holmes!" I jumped up from my chair and clamped my hand over his mouth, fighting an urge to throttle him. How dare he speak so freely about me, and all without the slightest indication of his own perversion!

"It's true," Cooper said suddenly. "It's true," he whispered, staring at us in amazement.

I blushed hotly in the face of the young man's scrutiny, and Holmes forced me to let go of him, sitting me back on the sofa.

"I apologise," he said blandly. "Only your genuine panic would convince him."

I remained unhappy and mortified.

Holmes caressed my hand lightly, as much as he would dare, and assured softly, "He would not reveal us, no more than we would him."

Cooper nodded quickly to this and gazed at us with a kind of reverence, comforted by the sight of our touch. "I'm sorry, too, Doctor," he added.

I sighed and peevishly pushed away Holmes's hand, but was resigned to the situation.

Holmes focused his attention on Cooper. "You met Hope on the streets, then? He was driving his cab?"

"Y-yes," Cooper stammered. Then he cleared his throat and began more boldly, "I was not dressed this way. I was not--you gentlemen saw me the other night as old Mrs. Sawyer; that was a disguise, a precaution against any trap you set, but on this night I was dressed in... what I usually wear." He swallowed and explained quickly, blushing, "I tell my bosses at the paper that I cultivate the art of disguise because I have an ambition to be an undercover investigative reporter, but they little know just how many nights I am out there, for my own... recreation."

"You are accustomed to female costume?" Holmes filled in.

Cooper nodded.

I glanced at that boyish face again and realised that the delicacy of his features and the petite proportions of his body might serve him well in such a disguise.

Cooper shrugged and tried to be casually dismissive. "I have wigs and makeup and such. You can imagine it."

Indeed we could. In our own experience of the molly houses in town, we had seen countless men dressed as women, sometimes in an exaggerated, outlandish way, and their behaviour often matched their dress.

Cooper continued his remarkable statement. "I was dressed, then, in the way that I prefer. It was late in the evening, and I was just walking by on the pavement, not hailing any cab, not noticing at all. Jefferson must have glimpsed me in the lamplight, and he was stunned, for my hair, my face, and my figure were all familiar to him. After gaping awhile, he suddenly jumped down from his cab and ran after me, shouting 'Lucy' like a madman.

"He startled me; I did not know if I ought to be afraid or not. When I turned to face him, he slowed down and looked at me more carefully. He realised his mistake and shook his head, apologising breathlessly, 'No, you can't be her. I'm an idiot. No, Lucy's dead. I saw her dead twenty years ago, when I got her ring from her finger. You just, you look so much like her, back then, when we courted. I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I scared you, Miss.'

"I shivered at bit. He was so much taller than me, with a red face and grizzled beard; he looked wild and rough, despite his courteous speech, and he talked so strangely that I did not know just what to make of him. I said, 'That's all right, sir,' and tried to smile.

"He kept staring at me, and I said, 'Your wife looked like me?'

"But he grimaced suddenly and shook his head. 'My wife, no,' he choked. 'No, she never got to be my wife.'

"'Oh, you meant her engagement ring? I'm sorry, did she pass away before your wedding?'

"Every word I said seemed to upset him more. He struggled for his voice. 'No, I never had no chance to give her a ring. I was away in the silver mines, trying to make some money for it. I was trying--' His hands started to shake and his eyes filled with tears. 'Oh, I never should have left her!'

"I couldn't leave him like that, on the street, so I took him by the arm and brought him into a pub, to sit him down awhile and calm him. We had drinks and started talking. He never seemed to notice where we were, to see the other patrons around us; he only had eyes for me. He didn't even realise that he'd left his cab out on the street, with no one in charge of the horse."

Cooper paused and swallowed. "I admit that I found his attention flattering. He was a dark, handsome stranger, and no one had ever looked at me the way that he did." He frowned, and spoke as if in anguish, "I suppose I should have guessed then that he was lost, that he did not know me for what I was. But other men have surprised me, and I've stopped questioning it whenever they fix their eyes upon me."

The youth took another gulp of brandy. "He told me his name, and I answered that I was Rose--that's what I call myself when I'm dressed like that. He started telling me about Lucy, and about his old life in the States. His people came from St. Louis, and he roamed all over the West, looking for adventure and taking all sorts of jobs. I said it must be hard surviving out there, away from civilisation. He said I'd be surprised how uncivilised it could be, and he got very quiet, staring into his glass.

"To break the silence, I told him how my family originally came from the States too. Some of them once tried to go west back in 1847, with one of those wagon trains, but it was lost somewhere in the desert. All twenty-one people died or went missing, so our remaining family stayed well away, and we eventually went east.

"When I told him that, he looked up and got this strange look in his eyes. '1847,' he repeated after me. 'Twenty-one people in a wagon train.' Then he started asking me all sorts of details about the wagon train, and where it was headed. I told him I didn't know. It was just a story I heard from my father sometimes about the old days, when he himself had been a boy, and he only knew as much as his grandparents told him once they learned of the disaster. My father had not gone on the wagon train because he was staying at home with them.

"Jefferson asked me urgently, 'What's your last name? Is it Ferrier?'

"I told him no, we were Coopers. That disappointed him greatly, but then he remembered more. 'Wait,' he said, 'Lucy wasn't born Ferrier. She was adopted. Her dad told me so, when I asked him whatever happened to her mother.' Jefferson racked his brain to recall other details and he kept questioning me. Had I ever had any relative named Lucy? Yes, but it was my father's younger sister, lost on the wagon train. How old had she been? Five. Was my father's name Bob? Yes. Had there been anyone on the wagon train named John Ferrier? I did not know. He asked if I could take him to meet my father and speak to him about it. I said no, forcefully. He saw that he had upset me and apologised.

"Then he took out an old locket from his coat, saying, 'Lucy gave me this when I went away to the silver mines.' He opened it and showed me the faded picture inside. She looked just like me, when I'm Rose. It was like looking into a miniature mirror. Jefferson stared at me and the picture together, and he saw that his memory had not deceived him. He took hold of my hand and pressed it tightly. 'You're Lucy's kin!' he said, smiling and crying. 'Your folk are Lucy's folk. No wonder you look like her. No wonder.' He kissed both my hands so tenderly."

Cooper was moved by the memory and shut his eyes. I saw Holmes's look of fascination, closely analysing that effeminate face.

Then the lad continued in an even softer voice. "Trusting him already, I asked him to come back with me to my rooms. He almost said yes, but then he became charmingly gallant and worried about my reputation. I laughed and said he must tell me what happened to my lost aunt Lucy, out there in the Wild West. Jefferson said I laughed just like Lucy. I said I might have some newspaper clippings at my home about the lost wagon train, so he agreed to come. We left the pub arm in arm, and he took me to his cab, which had wandered further down the street with the horse. He lifted me up onto the driver's seat and then got up beside me, holding the reins. I directed him as he drove us to my rooms, and he let me lean close against him."

He paused, and I refreshed Cooper's drink. I also poured for myself and Holmes.

I do not know how to describe what happened as we sat listening to this tale; the change occurred so subtly, so slowly. Somehow, while I watched Cooper's face, he began to look less and less boyish to me and more and more delicate. More feminine. A trick of the light perhaps? A certain posture and lighter voice? A blurring of vision from alcohol? Possibly Cooper was simply so adept at disguise and artifice that he did not need greasepaint and costume. For whatever reason, I found myself forgetting the masculine clothes and the short hair, and instead I increasingly regarded the young creature before me as if, well as if she were a woman. I suppose this is what Hope saw in her at the time.

Young Cooper continued with a shrug. "I have just a small flat; there's only me and my clothes, principally. Why didn't Jefferson suspect anything when he saw that I lived alone? I was sure he must have known then. He said afterward that he thought my parents were gone now, and I was fending for myself. Anyway, we started talking again and drinking in my sitting-room. He didn't even care that I didn't have the newspaper clippings. He spent hours telling me the whole history and pouring out his heart.

"I suppose you gentlemen think I was irresponsible to believe him and help him hunt down Drebber and Stangerson? But I trusted Jefferson; I knew he was right. Those wicked men had killed an old man and kidnapped his daughter, and for what? His land and his money, which they could have seized anyway, if the Ferriers had escaped Utah and started a new life. Why, that monstrous Drebber was even trying to snatch another young girl the night that Jefferson offered him his box of pills; it was the just providence that did him in!"

Holmes steered the conversation away from ethics, and back to the events at hand. "What happened at your flat?"

A sigh. "Jefferson kept staring at me, so warmly. I let him kiss me and hold me in his strong arms. I didn't care if he called me Lucy; no one had ever made me feel so wanted. I asked him to take me to my bed. He picked me up, like a bride over the threshold, and he carried me in. He lay me down and we kissed and we touched. Then when he undressed me, he looked at me, and--" Cooper swallowed, wincing with the memory. "So I took off my wig, and let him stare. I told him I was sorry, I thought he knew. Everyone on that street knows, _always_ knows. No one ever expects any different.

"I cried and turned away, humiliated and scared that he hated me now. Jefferson sat there in silence for several moments, but he never hurt me, never got angry. He tried to clear his head, and I heard him finally speak. 'What was I doing anyway?' he blamed himself. 'Taking a young girl? Lucy's niece? What am I doing here? Even if you were walking the streets--'

"I kept sobbing, ruining my makeup and my sheets, and he offered me his handkerchief, wiping away the stains and gazing into my face. 'You still... you still look so much like her.' He caressed me, and was so gentle and kind. 'Don't cry,' he soothed me. 'Don't cry. Don't let me make Lucy's--Lucy's kin cry.'

"I told him, 'I don't have any sister; there's no more girls--' He hushed me and stayed near, saying that any part of Lucy was a great comfort after all these years. He didn't make love to me anymore, but he held my hands, saying how much like hers they were. He asked me my real name, and if I always dressed like this. I told him about me and my work. Then he asked me if I would do him a favour and tell him how to go about finding Drebber and Stangerson; he was having a hard enough time trying to learn the streets in London so that he could drive his cab, and all he knew was that the villains had arrived in London from the Continent a few days ago. I said I could make inquiries for him, and he actually smiled at me again.

"Jefferson started to leave me, saying that he had neglected his job too long and he would come meet me tomorrow night. I begged him to stay, offering to pay him for the work I had caused him to lose. He refused, but I insisted that he would do no good working drunk and tired, getting lost in the dark; he could sleep on my sofa for the night. So Jefferson finally consented to stay, but he felt guilty. I got up and put on my dressing-gown, noticing the way that he looked at me. I started to make up the sofa for him, but then I realised my manners and said he could have my bed instead. He was a guest, and older; the bed would be more comfortable for him. He argued with me, and I said I wasn't a damsel, after all. That hushed him."

She looked down at her slender hands. "So we slept separately. In the morning, I awoke and found him kneeling before me and watching me. I suppose it bothered him, how I looked in my night-gown and wig, even without my corset and petticoats. He asked me if I always slept that way. Was I always so convincing? I told him yes, that I live my nights completely apart from my daytime hours. It was a struggle to keep everyone at the paper from suspecting my double life.

"Jefferson said nothing for a long time, then he got up to go to work. He was half ashamed when I gave him the money I had promised him, and he said he would make it up to me. I told him it was a gift, and reminded him to come see me again, so that I could report to him about Drebber and Stangerson."

"And so you began to help him?" Holmes mused. "You found out where they were staying, so that he could stalk them during the day. You wrote the Mormon manuscript as a defence, should he ever be caught."

She nodded gravely. "I did not want him to be treated like a common cutthroat. I loved him."

"Evidently." Holmes remained uncomfortable with the emotional display, and cleared his throat. "And you helped him find a doctor to check upon his heart?"

"Yes, I--that was after, when he started to live with me. You see, he followed Drebber and Stangerson so much that he could hardly earn any money for his employer, let alone for himself. Jefferson couldn't afford his lodgings anymore, and I asked him to come live with me. It hurt his pride. 'It should be the other way around,' he said.

"When he moved in, he saw me getting dressed for work one morning, and since then he avoided being home anytime during the day. Still we would meet at night and talk. I noticed that he was hiding an illness, and found him a doctor despite his protests. When I heard how bad it was, I said that he should give up pursuit of Drebber and Stangerson, but he refused to fail at his quest after all these years. I asked how he could possibly succeed if he perished too soon, and I begged him to let me take his place.

"He said no, how could he let me risk myself like that? I reminded him I wasn't a girl again, and he nodded. 'I know,' he said, 'but you are still delicate and gentle. I couldn't let you face those villains, Rose; they'd overmatch you, even separately.' He kissed my hands. 'And how could I let these hands be stained with murder?'"

Her eyes brimmed with tears. "I was so glad that he was touching me again. I begged him, 'Please let me help you.' He surrendered and said all right. The only obstacle that remained was that he could never get either Drebber or Stangerson alone. Even if they did not recognise him following them around, Stangerson at least had not forgotten the perpetual danger that they lived in. So I could help by serving as a distraction to separate them. Jefferson said that Drebber still lusted after girls and scarcely controlled himself. If he saw me, Drebber would abandon Stangerson to pursue me, and Jefferson would come to my rescue and trap him. He warned that I should leave immediately, and leave the rest to him. He could not bear the thought of my being endangered for long. I promised I would, and--"

She choked with emotion, her voice quavering. "That night he had mercy on me. He kissed me and made love to me. He carried me to my bed just like before, and I loved him so much. When I asked him why he would do this, how he could bear to touch me, he said he wished to thank me for my kindness. Besides, he thought of me as his Lucy reborn, come back somehow just for him." She swallowed, whispering, "Maybe I believe that now. Maybe it's true. Maybe I was always waiting for him to find me."

Holmes and I were truly shocked and hardly knew how to respond. I could see Holmes's severe discomfort with the irrational sentiment, so I intervened awkwardly. "So the night of Drebber's murder, you came along with Hope?"

She calmed and shook her head. "Jefferson was going to pick me up that night in his cab, but he did not come. I waited for him for hours, terrified that something had happened to him. That he had been killed, or his heart gave out. I could not sleep at all, and finally I heard his key in the door, almost at dawn.

"He picked me up in his arms and cried, 'I've done it! I've done it!' Then he saw my distress and soothed me. 'I'm sorry, my darling, but I had an amazing bit of luck tonight, and could not come home sooner.' I clung to him and he kissed me, explaining that he had got one villain, and the other one was soon to come. Then he took me to bed and made love to me so passionately, so thrillingly."

Holmes coughed. "So that was the night that Drebber did abandon Stangerson at the railway station, but for a different young girl."

"Yes. Jefferson feared at first that Drebber and Stangerson would take the first express out of England and disappear again, just as they had every time that he caught up with them before. But he was wrong--"

"Yes, yes," Holmes interrupted. "We already know how Hope trapped Drebber that night in the empty house and administered his vengeance. What about Stangerson? He left that for an entire day."

"Oh, after we made love, Jefferson explained what had happened and how he had almost been caught by a constable when he came back to the house for Lucy's ring. So he decided he better not risk going to the hotel to find Stangerson just yet. Stangerson was always careful and never went out at night alone, so he should still be waiting at the hotel by morning.

"We slept, and then Jefferson woke me the next day, saying he would go see about Stangerson. I told him to be careful and remember his heart. He smiled and finished dressing. Then he remembered about the lost ring, and said, 'I guess I could confront Stangerson without it, since he did not marry Lucy but killed her father.' But Jefferson still wished to have it back, for he was going to bury it when his vengeance was done. I asked if I could help, and he remembered that I was a reporter, which would be a perfect excuse for me to nose about the crime scene, pestering the police detectives. He cautioned me to be careful, and I hugged him, saying I would meet him for lunch at the hotel and tell him what I found.

"By noon I had no luck at being let onto the premises; my own colleagues said that it was none of my affair, and I should go write my baby columns. But I had seen your advertisement in the paper. It was broad daylight, but I risked dressing as Rose anyway and I found Jefferson's cab outside the hotel, where he was watching for Stangerson. He came down to have lunch with me, and I told him about the advertisement. 'You might have lost it in the road. Shall I go see?'

"He thought it might be dangerous, some kind of trap. I said I would be careful, and he kissed me, insisting that I return for supper, or else he would worry. So I disguised myself as old Mrs. Sawyer and I came here for the ring, as you gentlemen know.

"When I had slipped you off my trail, Mr. Holmes, I changed my clothes again and returned to Jefferson at the hotel. He lifted me up onto his driver's seat with him and kissed me when I gave him the ring. 'Such a clever girl, aren't you?' He smiled, sliding his arm around my waist. I asked him if he had got to Stangerson yet, but he hadn't.

"'No, I was sure that the man would try to leave for the trains again, but he's cunning and won't budge. He's stuck in that room until daylight anyhow, so we might as well go home ourselves now. I can come back early tomorrow morning. I know his room number now; he's that window there.' Jefferson pointed out one of the hotel windows upstairs, and I said, 'Maybe you can use the cab to reach it.'

"'Clever girl!' he said, starting to drive us home. 'No, there's a ladder they keep nearby. I can use that, while everyone's still asleep.'

"Something made me shiver, and I needed his reassurance. 'Then, when you've done with him, will you come back home?' I knew Jefferson had never returned during daylight hours before.

"He shrugged. 'After I work a bit with my cab. I don't want to raise suspicions.'

"'But come home and stay awhile. Tell your boss you're ill so he'll let you.'

"He said softly, 'I'd like that.'

"So we went home and made love again. Jefferson left me in the morning, and never returned," she whispered. "My heart sunk when I first heard of his capture, and broke when I read of his death. Oh God, if he had only come home!"

She broke down completely, and this time I did put my arm around her and gave her my handkerchief. Never had I seen anyone so fragile, of either sex. She sobbed against my shoulder, and I almost regretted our capture of Jefferson Hope. But then, he would have died anyway, and Holmes could never have solved the two murders.

Holmes rose from his chair and began pacing our sitting-room distractedly. He smoked his pipe with great rapidity, and no doubt was still trying to absorb the extraordinary tale we had heard. Perhaps he was also conflicted about harbouring sympathies for Cooper, despite her disturbing zeal to aid and abet a murderer.

She asked me in her small, vulnerable voice, so incongruous with her short locks and her masculine clothing, "Why did he not come home to me? What had I done wrong?"

"I am sure that he only wished to protect you, to draw no suspicion by missing work."

"But he was ill! Why not just tell them at the cab-yard? It was over; there was no more he had to do. No more, but live with me."

I believe she feared that Hope had not genuinely loved her, that she had been a mere substitute for his dead Lucy, and an expedient accomplice. My heart went out to her.

I told her, "I was there when the police took down his official statement about killing Drebber and Stangerson. When Holmes mentioned your assistance as Mrs. Sawyer, Hope refused to reveal your identity. He wished to protect you from trouble, and he called you--well, not a clever girl--but a smart friend."

She pondered that in silence, but seemed little comforted. I refrained from mentioning what might or might not have been a lie--Hope's stated intention to return to America.

Holmes finally came to an uneasy decision and sat down before us again, clearing his throat. "Cooper. You wish to know what has become of Jefferson Hope? His possessions, his remains?"

"Yes." She looked to him eagerly.

"He will be buried within days, but I will not tell you where or when until the event has already passed. If you attended his burial and could not keep your composure, your intimate connexion to him would surely be exposed; no mere reporter would sob over Hope's death. On the other hand, we might be able to obtain his possessions from the police for you, as souvenirs of the case. I don't believe they ever traced any next of kin."

"No, he didn't have anyone now. Except me."

"Very well. We shall find some way to ask about his last words as well."

"Thank you," she said solemnly.

Holmes remained uncomfortable. "Return here this afternoon, and otherwise try not to think of the whole affair anymore."

But Holmes knew nothing about the process of grief over a departed loved one.

"I cannot!" she said, wretched again. "How can I forget him?"

"You must," Holmes spoke unwisely. "It is finished, as you said. Dr. Watson here will see to the publication of your manuscript, after some editing to make sure you cannot be traced. You must... live your life again."

She was of course too distraught to consider that possibility. "I don't have any life without him."

I quickly halted Holmes from saying anything else disastrous, but found that I myself could only offer trite words. "He would wish you to be happy, Miss--Miss Cooper."

She was surprised that I had addressed her so. "If... if I am really his Lucy, do you think it will be long before I join him?"

I was dismayed. "You mustn't talk like that."

"I don't want to wait years, decades, to see him again! Not even knowing if I will."

I leaned near to her and finally struck upon words that were of some use. "When we first captured Hope, he fought like the devil to break free. He threw himself out that very window, perhaps trying to reach his cab parked on the street there, but in the end he was resigned to be caught. He no longer saw the point in fighting, not even to return to you. He recognised that his fate is in the hands of a higher power, and he must trust it to make the right decisions. You must recognise this too. Be patient, and live. You are still young yet."

"He, he tried to come back to me?" she whispered.

I nodded.

That assuaged her pain. "At least I will have his locket to keep, and the ring to bury." She looked on the mend now, although she remained mournful. "I will be lonely without him."

"Of course, but you will have the memory to comfort you." I pressed her hand. "Try to compose yourself. You have to go home as... as you are."

She took my meaning and swallowed, aware of her deceptive exterior. She knew that she must be even somewhat manly again in public; she must be strong and aloof enough to avoid attracting attention or suspicion.

After that extraordinary person left us, Holmes and I sat there alone, exhausted by the encounter.

Holmes asked me if I really believed what I said about trusting a higher power.

I glanced at him. "Who knows what was in his head at the time? Hope did seem amazingly serene after his capture. In any case, a suicide on top of everything else would be a tragic, unnecessary end to your supposedly simple mystery." I sighed. "I'm inclined to keep checking up on her, with one excuse or another, to be sure that she'll be fine. Perhaps we ought to suggest to her when she returns that she give up journalism for a thespian career. She has the talent for it."

Holmes did not comment on the pronouns I used, and he merely poured himself another brandy. "Or Cooper might move to a country with less restrictive laws."

"Yes, anything to put her less at risk. You don't suppose that she'll come under anyone else's influence as strongly as she did Hope's? I can hardly believe setting aside all law, being willing to kill for the one you love."

Holmes sat back in his chair. "Hope wished to kill for Lucy Ferrier's sake, to avenge her death and her father's."

"Yes. I suppose... Rose saw it as reciprocal."

Holmes repeated quietly, "It is finished now."

We were both silent for some time, and I could not help but contemplate the matter further.

"Do you suppose Hope loved her?" I ventured at last. "Or just used her?"

"That is something only he could answer." Holmes looked at me, then kissed me before rising. "Take care what you write. What you publish."

He exited and went down to Scotland Yard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As opposed to England, many continental European countries had adopted a system of laws modeled on the Code Napoleon, first established in France in 1804. Under the Code, consensual same-sex acts were legal in private, although harrassment and intolerance often continued anyway. Ironically, France had criminalized cross-dressing in 1853, so that country would not be a good choice for Rose.  
Of course, I don't mean Rose to be gay, but actually a straight woman born into the wrong body. It's just that Rose herself is confused about the issue at first, and she could easily get indiscriminately lumped with transvestites or with homosexuals of whatever country she's in.


	12. New Beginnings

Holmes came back with a parcel of things from Scotland Yard and set it aside upon my desk, before joining me for lunch.

I asked him if he was entirely recovered from last night's activities yet.

He smiled, and reached to kiss me. "Do you anticipate prolonging the illness?"

"Only if you don't object." I caressed his leg with my foot under the table.

He laughed, then cautioned quietly, "Later."

"I know, not while the servants are up. I have had an illicit affair before, Holmes," I reminded him, "and hid it well enough to not have a dishonourable discharge!"

He was nonchalant. "Ah yes, Murray. I have some recollection of your mentioning that name last night."

"Some!" I could not help being irked. "I wish that I had not mentioned him at all, for I had no idea you'd tell it to the next person you met."

"Oh, Watson! Are you still annoyed about that?"

"You could at least assure me that you won't be so thoughtless about my private life in the future."

"Oh, very well." He shrugged, then quirked an eyebrow upward. "Really, I should have thought you'd object more to my disclosing a recent affair, rather than an old one."

"You did hint at us, too."

"Obliquely."

I reached for his hand. "Well, don't hint at either affair, without my consent." Then I smiled. "You know, if we include that time in the closet, our affair is older than mine with Murray."

"Oh?" he said. "In that case, you have been wilfully cheating on me for years. Shame on you! I suggest you make it up to me tonight."

"I will," I assured him.

I am pleased to say that my ardent look made him blush.

We finished our lunch, and I had a peek inside the parcel.

"Watson!" he chastised. "Those are not your things to rummage through."

"I'm checking that you got the _real_ ring, not just your facsimile."

"I checked that myself," he answered. "This was the ring found at the murder scene. There was not another one on Hope, so he may have buried it already."

"Oh." I remembered Miss Cooper's anxieties about why Hope had stayed away the morning of Stangerson's murder. "Well, let her bury the real one, then." I shrugged.

"Ahem, hadn't you better leave the parcel alone, then?"

I confessed that I actually wanted a glimpse into the locket she'd mentioned.

He tsked at me. "You might be patient and ask when the owner is around."

I glanced inside anyway and saw the faded image of Lucy Ferrier née Cooper, who sadly never became Hope. The lovely maiden did indeed greatly resemble the young creature we had met today, and I was amazed once more by the transformation I had witnessed.

Holmes seemed to read my thoughts in my face, and he remarked as I restored the locket to the parcel, "In my work, I occasionally don disguises myself, Watson, but it seems that I could take lessons from Cooper in the art of deception. Although," he cleared his throat quickly, "I don't think I shall follow our young friend's example in all matters."

I took his meaning and returned to his side, kissing him. "I love you as you are."

He smiled briefly, before resuming his stern demeanour. "Later," he said, and I returned to my desk with studied indifference.

I do not think I went too far by using the word "love" so soon between us, for he seemed unfazed by it and understood it to mean both our friendly affection as well as our perverse intimacy in his bed. I think he has enjoyed this transition we have made from teasing friends to wicked lovers, and only seeks to recover his usual composure again.

Holmes may be the most extraordinary man I have ever desired, let alone had, and he seems flattered to know it, since he saw already how picky I am about men when we visited the molly houses together. I know that some sodomites enjoy effeminacy in themselves or their partners, but I have personally found it only mildly arousing at best. It still confounds me to imagine a virile man like Jefferson Hope engaging in a relationship with a person of complicated sex, but men are all different, I suppose.

We expect Cooper's return anytime now, and I vaguely wonder how she will be dressed.

* * *

Still the male garments, though when she caught my look, she said to me that I could call her Rose, instead of Miss Cooper.

Anyhow, she looked in better control of herself now than this morning, and was grateful to have Hope's last few belongings as keepsakes of him. I also told her briefly about the duplicate rings, and she was cheered to think that Hope's last errand had delayed him rather than any hesitation about their affair.

She then asked me about Holmes's earlier remark that I would edit and publish her Mormon manuscript, and I explained that I was putting together my own account of the case. "It's probably better in your hands," she said, lamenting that she herself would have no chance at publishing such a project. "I wish you luck, Doctor, and look forward to having the public know Jefferson's noble motives."

Holmes mentioned to Rose our ideas about a change in her profession or her country of residence. She replied that she wished to simply mourn Hope at present, and I apologised for any presumption on our part, to interfere in her life.

"No, that's all right, Doctor. It's only your kindness." Rose's smile was so soft and feminine at that moment, that I wondered more than ever how she daily managed to fool her colleagues in the press that she was a man. Her body might technically classify her so, but her spirit did not.

Holmes asked Rose how she had become so adept at disguise, and if she had ever genuinely used her skills in an investigation, for such a talent would be invaluable to a reporter or a detective. Rose blinked her fair eyelashes at him, and I think his proposal that she instruct him in the art intrigued her. She was flustered and said that she would think about it.

She rose to leave us again, and we said good-bye to her, hopefully not for the last time.

I looked at Holmes when she had gone, and he murmured with fascination that he had not believed he could still be surprised by any form of deviance in existence. "Clearly, however, education never ends." He glanced at me then and remembered our lovemaking with a smile. "As I learned last night."

I kissed him and said he would learn more tonight.

* * *

Such passion in his arms last night. He is young and green, but a quick study. I took him in my mouth like I did years ago, and my method had improved a great deal, judging from his ecstatic response and his swift show of gratitude. The sight of him on his knees before me was incredible, transporting me back to what I had felt but not seen in the dark of the closet. It seemed that we were reliving our past again, though with more skill. I think I might say "I love you" to him someday and mean it sincerely.

Unfortunately, such a feeling of closeness was not to last. All today, Holmes has been aloof and rigidly composed, with hardly a glance or a smile for me. I fear he is veering again into silence and vacancy, and I have tried to rouse him out with conversation, but am succeeding less and less with each attempt. This morning he worked briefly on some abstruse chemical experiment, all the while lamenting the lack of any new mystery to solve. He seems quite bored of the world, and perhaps of me too.

So I asked him to a concert with me, and he humoured me in a content, but drowsy way. Afterward he was irritated that I had not the stamina to accompany him to the British Museum as well, and we parted.

While Holmes remained out, Gregson and Lestrade stopped by this afternoon and asked specifically to speak to me privately. Apparently Holmes had mentioned to them my intention to write an account of the Brixton Mystery, as an excuse for his asking for Hope's possessions, so they had generously brought me their own notebooks from the case.

I was quite surprised and delighted. "Why, thank you both! You don't mind," I coughed delicately, "if I reveal Holmes's part in the investigation?"

"Not at all!" Lestrade clapped my shoulder heartily. "We shall have plenty more cases in the meantime. By the way, did you happen to have a word with Holmes about us?"

"A word?"

"Yes," Gregson said. "Something about abbreviating his lectures?"

"Oh! Yes, I may have said something to that effect. Did Holmes mention that?"

"Yes!" Lestrade laughed and nearly wrung off my hand with gratitude. "I tell you, Doctor, when we saw him at the Yard yesterday, we were sure that he had come down to gloat some more about the Hope case, and to rake us over the coals for our faults again. But he did not. He was amazingly subdued."

"Amazingly," Gregson echoed with enthusiasm. He was practically beaming.

"We could hardly believe it. When we asked him why he did not greet us with his customary diatribe, he warned us that he would not stop his lectures altogether, since we must learn in future cases, but he would abbreviate them to a minimum, as had been suggested to him by a certain impartial witness."

Gregson chortled happily, and shook my hand as well. "Thank you, Doctor." So they left me, still chattering and laughing between themselves.

I spent the afternoon examining their notebooks and writing a little of my account of the mystery. Perhaps I can gain Holmes's interest in my project when he comes home.

* * *

Holmes returned late, with numerous mud splashes on his trousers that spoke of another long walk. He described to me his journey as we dined, but soon became bored and quiet. He yawned and lit his pipe, then devoted himself to his scrapbooks, which seem to consist of numerous clippings from newspapers, interspersed with his own notations. I tried to ask him about the books, for they had often attracted my curiosity, but he would not reply nor let me examine any of them. I felt rather snubbed and lonely.

But as soon as the night grew later and safer, Holmes showed interest in me again, reaching to kiss me. When I did not respond to him, he teased me with a smile. "Did I not warn you of my inconstancy, Doctor?" The only sure-fire cure for it, he said, would be another night with me, or did I not want to combat his ennui anymore?

We locked ourselves in his bedroom again.

He is not bored with our lovemaking, at least. His eyes came to life at last and he even growled with pleasure as we explored new variations and techniques. Sex with him is better every time. I am thoroughly enjoying his lean flexibility in my arms, and appreciating all his differences from Murray. For his part, Holmes still seems fascinated by my scarred body, and I wonder if I should ask him again about the scars upon his arm from his "medication," but he seems not to trust me that much yet. We shall see what happens when I delve deeper into his vulnerabilities.

Holmes suggested that one of these nights we reverse things and share my bed instead of his. As he enjoyed variety so much, I asked him what had become of his handcuffs and described delicious things we might do with them. Just the mere thought excited him a great deal, and he praised Murray for teaching me to be so naughty.

I could spend hour after hour, day after day, and week after week teaching Holmes to be naughty, if only we could go on without interruption. He is such a wicked, lovely creature.

* * *

Rose came by today. I was both surprised and pleased to see her dressed in feminine costume, with a pretty wig upon her head. If Mrs. Hudson noticed her resemblance to the rude Mr. Cooper of two days ago, she possibly assumed they were siblings, or even twins.

I shut the door and showed Rose to a seat, while Holmes finally turned around from his violin playing and gazed at her. He was disarmed, and realised that he could no longer address her in masculine terms.

"Good day, madam." He took a seat beside me. "What brings you back here so soon?"

She smiled mischievously. "It's a little experiment, I suppose. I was always afraid of dressing like this during daylight hours, thinking that I would not be convincing enough and would end up punished. But since I did risk being Rose for Jefferson's sake that day, and since you told me yourself that I had a talent for disguise, I decided to try it out and see if anyone would discover me. I went to my newspaper's offices today, prepared to tell them that I was disguised on an undercover investigation if I must, and bear their laughing at me, but they didn't know me." She giggled. "Why, one of the fellows said he did not know that Robert had a sister, and tried to flirt with me!"

"And how did you respond?"

She shrugged. "Oh I was shy and said he'd better talk to my brother when he got to feeling better. Then I dropped off my articles that were due to my boss and left. Jefferson is so special to me still, I cannot think of someone else."

"Of course." I patted her gloved hand.

"I am not sure just what I shall do, Doctor. Maybe I will even decide to stop being Robert at all. I should like to be Rose all the time, not just at night. Of course, I know I shall lose a lot of masculine freedom to go about wherever I wish, yet it seems so small a price to pay to have what I have always wanted."

"Always? It did not begin just with Hope?" Holmes asked.

"No." She shook her head and blushed. "I suppose I gave you the wrong impression with my story the other day. I did frequent the molly houses at night, but they never quite fulfilled me. I had some friends there, and men who would desire me, yet not be surprised when we were in bed, but I did not want to just play at being a girl. I have always felt like Rose, even when I was forced to act as Robert to make my living."

I was intrigued and asked her to tell us about it.

"Well," she explained, "since my childhood I have preferred to think of myself as my family's only daughter, instead of one of its sons. My family stringently discouraged my notion, however, and made me miserable in my own skin. They wanted me always to dress and behave like my brothers, and I resisted for years, but..." She paused and frowned. "I would suffer taunts and abuses from the boys at school, who seemed to prove my family right, that I must be able to defend myself from them."

"My dear Rose!" I pressed her hand again, remembering the brutality of my schooldays, where we would chase any delicate boy around with wickets. I regretted this behaviour, and wondered if the pain in Rose's eyes spoke of far worse torments than that.

She continued softly, "So I hid myself as Robert and remained as lonely as I was confused. Finally one day I decided to run away from home and live independently, where at least I might be free to dress up anyway I liked in private. So I got my job at the newspaper, and in the course of my work and my wanderings through town, I learned about the secret places where I might go at night and be accepted--at least, if there were no police attempting a raid." She shrugged. "Then my dear Jefferson found me, and now--now you see me."

"Hope did change your mind, then?" Holmes ventured, trying to comprehend her.

Rose nodded and said that, since Jefferson had shown her such love and acceptance, she would rather stay Rose all the time, than continue in her strained double life. She simply had to plan how she would make her living as a single woman instead of as a man.

I asked if we could be of assistance.

She replied that she intended to speak to some of her friends at the molly houses tonight and ask them if the stories were true, that some persons like her could pass as women for all their life and be happy. Their advice would help her formulate some plan.

Then Rose smiled and pressed back upon my hand. "I will let you know what happens, Doctor, and I thank you both so much for your support. Your not turning me in to the police shall not have been in vain, I assure you."

She kissed us both on the cheek as she rose to leave, which made Holmes a bit uncomfortable, but he said good day to her, and I wished her luck.

Holmes wiped the rouge off my cheek with his handkerchief, and I kissed it off of his.

* * *

I asked Holmes yet again about his scrapbooks and he finally answered that they were his commonplace books, in which he compiled entries on crime, his cases, and various persons of importance. As an example, he took down the book marked "M" on the outside, opened it to a particular page, and then handed it to me.

I was startled to find an entry on myself! It read:

> Morris, James, alias of unknown visitor to Camford university, March 1876. Sodomite afraid of exposure. Posed as a student, infiltrating a chemistry laboratory of the Medical School. Came with express purpose to seduce an undergraduate; successful. Medical type, may already have Bachelor's degree and be practising. Appeared to be early to mid 20s. Soft brown hair. Moustached. Auburn eyes. Excellent kisser. 5'7". Medium, athletic build; rugby perhaps. Hands of a surgeon. Most talented. Violent temper when cornered. Spontaneous. Passionate. Possibly inexperienced, or only clumsy in dark, cramped closet. Was unable to check visually for birthmarks, but he seemed free of scars. Would know his scent again.

I expressed my shock and warned Holmes that he ought to destroy such evidence of our affair. He responded that I should rightly destroy all my journals, then. I was reluctant, so he assured me that it would be all right so long as we took care to keep our writings private from others' eyes. Anyway, this "Morris" entry, he said, only implicated himself as being seduced some five years ago, an offence that might be overlooked by policemen eager for his help as a detective.

"But, still--!" I protested.

Holmes told me to look up "Watson, John H." and handed me the "W" book now.

I obeyed and found that the entry under my actual name made no reference to the "Morris" episode, and spoke of me only as a doctor who had become his room-mate and assistant upon his recent case. The entry also mentioned my planned writings with a little annoyance, but said grudgingly that it might be of use, as a practical demonstration of the theories he had published in his "Book of Life" article.

Holmes then remarked with a smile that the hour was growing late, so he returned both his books to his shelf and asked me which room I preferred tonight. I told him to bring his handcuffs and meet me in my room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watson knows bullying from his schooldays. In the "Naval Treaty" story, we learn that he used to go to school with Percy Phelps, who was a little nerd, and a nephew to a lord. Watson speaks of chasing Percy around and hitting him on the shins with a wicket. The corporal discipline from the school masters was probably severe, too, and "worse torments" could include sexual abuses that occurred with varying frequency, depending upon the particular school.


End file.
